For guardianship, administration, consent to medical treatment and Advanced Care Directives hearings, SACAT has flexibility in considering the most appropriate way of dealing with your matter.

When your application is received, SACAT will determine from the information provided whether a conference, conciliation, mediation or hearing is the appropriate way of dealing with your matter and will notify you by email, post or phone.

A full hearing will occur when a dispute has not resolved at a conference or other more informal process, or where it has been decided at the outset that a hearing is the best way of dealing with the issue.

Please refer to the Guardianship & Administration section of Fact sheets and guides for more information.

Who should attend the hearing?

As the person who submitted the application, you must attend the hearing.

It is important for the person who is the subject of the application to also attend.

Every effort must be made to involve this person in the process - as the applicant, you are responsible for making arrangements for this person to attend the hearing.

These are people who have an interest in the welfare of the person. Usually this will include:

  • the person’s primary in-home non-professional carer (partner/spouse or family member)
  • joint property owners with the person
  • the appointed Attorneys under an Enduring Power of Attorney
  • the appointed substitute decision makers under an Advance Care Directive
  • people who have been involved in the care of the person (case workers, accommodation providers etc)

In some cases, the Public Advocate may also attend.

Other people can also attend the hearing including:

  • legal representatives
  • recognised advocates
  • support people
  • family and friends.

Outcome of the hearing

SACAT will generally tell everyone attending the hearing their decision and reasons at the end.

In more complex matters, SACAT may reserve its decision to carefully consider the evidence and submissions. In these cases, a decision will usually be made within three weeks.

You can request a written statement with the decision and reasoning. This can take up to three weeks to produce - or longer depending on the complexity of the case.