The central character of the series is Michael Rafferty, a stipendiary magistrate in the small suburban court of the Sydney seaside suburb of Manly. The main business of the court is minor offences. Rafferty's personal life is also a feature.
'Prosecutor Flicker and Rafferty differ over a debacle in police processing that keeps a Polish-Australian in the local police station holding cell.
Rafferty's clerk, Fulvio, is chosen to sit on a panel interviewing job applicants but doesn't impress the other panelists including the one who chose him.
Rafferty has terrible trouble chasing up errors made by his credit card provider and at the end of the episode Rafferty presides over a case on civil rights where a woman is charged for not filling out a survey partially due to a discrepancy in its instructions.
Penne Hackforth-Jones guest stars as the prosecutor of this case. Georgie Parker appears as one of the job applicants.'
Source: Internet Movie Database