Attending by phone or video link

The Court has facilities for people to attend Court by telephone or video link. You can use the facilities to:

• attend a court event
• give submissions
• give evidence
• call a witness to give evidence

To attend by phone or video link, you need to:

• ask each other party (and any independent children's lawyer) whether they object
• request permission from the Judicial Officer managing your case, then
• arrange the details of the phone or video link with court staff

For the initial stages of your case, it is usually sufficient to attend by phone. The additional cost and complexity of arranging a video link is usually reserved for providing evidence at trial. You can discuss the need for video link or phone attendance with the judicial officer preparing your case for trial.

Requesting permission to attend by phone or video link

Attending a non-trial court event by telephone or video

You can request to attend by phone or video link at a procedural hearing, or by filing a request to attend by electronic means.

If your request is approved, you will then have to arrange the telephone or video facilities and advise the Court of the details.

Attending a trial by phone or video link

If you need to use the facilities at trial, you should discuss this with the Judicial Officer at the readiness hearing. Unless ordered otherwise, you must apply at least 28 days before the trial with:

• an application in a case (Form 2), and

• an affidavit with details of the request.

For the information you need to include in the affidavit, see affidavit requesting to attend trial by electronic means.

If your request is approved, you will have to arrange the telephone or video facilities and advise the Court of the details.

Arranging details of the phone or video link

If the request is approved, you need to arrange the phone or video link, and provide details to the Court. You can use the booking forms below.

For video links, you need to:

• find a suitable video link facility at the remote location, book it, and provide the contact details of the person who operates that video facility
• complete the Video Link booking form and email it to transcripts.familycourt@justice.wa.gov.au

For telephone links, you need to:

• advise the Court of the details of the phone link. You can use the Telephone Attendance booking form.

The booking forms have additional details on how to arrange your video or telephone link.

Costs of attending by phone or video link

There are no costs payable to the Court for telephone links, except for overseas telephone links. You will be advised of the call cost for overseas phone links if this applies to your situation.

The video link booking form has details of video link costs.

Last updated: 1-May-2019

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