Page 2656 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 26 September 2007
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It was these personal qualities, his calmness, his sense of humour and respectfulness combined with a frightening intellect, a rock of steadiness of judgement and a sense of human compassion which never strayed into sentimentality that resulted in Terry Connolly, Labor politician being appointed as Master of the Supreme Court by the then Liberal Government in 1996. Terry was not yet in his forties. It was an inspired choice, even if it deprived Labor in those days of a valuable political asset.
The justice system and the Canberra community have been the beneficiary, and few could justifiably cavil with that. Within six years of being appointed Master, and still aged less than 50, Terry Connolly was a judge of the ACT Supreme Court. I had the honour of making that appointment in my role as Attorney-General of the day. Terry was the obvious choice, a stand-out selection despite his youth. It was an appointment that was quickly and fully vindicated as he set about his scrupulous task of delivering justice.
In this place, of course, he is remembered still as one of the few calm beacons of sanity and good sense in those early years of self-government, valiantly striving to create a credible legislature out of community indifference at best and hostility at worse.
Justice Connolly was a member of this Assembly between 1990 and 1996. With the luxury and self-importance of hindsight, we too often dismiss the achievements of those first hectic years of self-government. We think of spoof parties and sometimes regrettable antics, yet the legacy of Terry Connolly is proof that self-government unleashed a reformist spirit and energy in the law unlike anything else previously experienced. His legacy lives for and benefits daily those caught up in our criminal justice system.
In his years as a politician Terry Connolly helped oversee the transition of the courts to ACT control. He pushed for and pushed through truly significant judicial reforms including diversionary conferencing, victim impact statements and restorative justice. So influential was he in this latter field that in 2001 he was invited by the United Nations to attend in Ottawa a conference to draw up guidelines for restorative justice programs worldwide.
As Attorney-General he took an active interest in national issues relating to the machinery of justice serving as Chair of the ACT Joint Rules Advisory Committee, overseeing uniform rules in civil procedure, and acting as the ACT representative on national harmonised rules committees.
Nor did his inquiring mind or his thirst for learning abate once he had made the shift from politics to the judiciary. In 2001 he studied mediation skills at Harvard Law School and subsequently put his new expertise to practical use introducing a pilot scheme encouraging mediation in more complex cases in the Supreme Court.
Justice Terry Connolly was a man whose enormous legal capacity was matched and balanced and enhanced by his compassion. He was a decent man—a more than decent man; a good man; simultaneously a reformer and an upholder of our legal system. We
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