Page 4399 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 30 November 1994
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The second possible answer to this question, Madam Speaker, is that the reason we would not extend closed-circuit television to all witnesses in proceedings in our courts is that perhaps it defeats the purpose of appearing in court at all. Perhaps there is a certain amount of intimidation, if I may use that word, which is actually part of the system of justice, and criminal justice particularly. If courts were as informal as one's living room, would the system work? To illustrate that point, Madam Speaker, I want to quote some comments that were made by Mr Gordon Richardson at informal proceedings that the Legal Affairs Committee conducted last week. We have an inquiry going on at the moment into access to justice and we held some informal proceedings last week.
Mr Richardson, as members will know, is a senior counsel. He is the ACT's first and, so far, only SC, the successor of the QC. Mr Richardson appeared before some members of the committee and made some comments about a number of things, including court gowns and wigs. I would like to quote some of those comments to the Assembly. Mrs Grassby asked him about wigs and gowns and suggested, "It can be quite frightening; it really can". Mr Richardson said in response:
Well, I am not prepared, with respect, just to accept that assertion. I am not at all convinced that that is right. It may be right, in some circumstances, but as far as judges go, and that is a matter for the judges, not for the profession, the Family Court experience is worth recording. Do you remember when the Family Court came into existence in 1976, the Act actually prohibited the wearing of robes. Then we had a period of courts being blown up, judges being murdered, counsel being threatened, and so on. Now, one of the reactions to that, and again it is very difficult to do research into this, but one of the reactions to that was to put the court back in robes. I think it is very important for the court to be seen, for a judge to be seen, as an administrator of justice. As a figurehead of the court, not as a human being. When I first used to appear here in the Family Court in 1976, in a small temporary court room, the judge was sitting as far away as you are -
that is, about two metres -
and my client would be sitting beside me. The judge would be dressed in ordinary clothes, just like an ordinary man in the street, or at least a suited ordinary man in the street, and he would be making emotive decisions about people's children and their property, and people would go out and feel, "Why should this man be making decisions like this that affect me?". They would get very upset about it.
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