Page 4495 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 14 October 2009
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said, I accept that the Liberals do not intend to create that US style with this proposal, and Mrs Dunne has been very explicit about that. Nevertheless it does open up the process to the potential for that to occur at some point in the future.
Another risk is that the accepted process for judicial appointments in Australian jurisdictions will be watered down. In Australia, it is the executive arm of government which appoints judicial officers. There is a level of responsibility assumed by members of the executive, and part of that is to make judicial appointments. The executive is responsible to the people and, should they make an unacceptable appointment, they are open to be held accountable. Judicial appointments are some of the most important that the executive will make and they need to be held accountable for those appointments. That responsibility is at the centre of the accepted Australian approach.
We note that there are other models for appointment of judicial officers in operation in overseas jurisdictions. A key example is the United Kingdom, where a commission, wholly independent from government, makes the decisions regarding judicial appointments. This represents a fundamentally different approach to Australia, where the executive arm of government is responsible for appointments.
The Greens believe that if the ACT were to move away from the existing executive appointment process it would be best done through a formal and detailed process where the community and legal profession were engaged and consulted with and there was a significant community debate about whether we wanted to change the way we make these very important appointments. We would prefer to see a formal consultation process that discusses a substantial change to the appointment process. We see this as a better approach than making amendments that expand the existing process to incorporate aspects of other approaches while essentially retaining the executive appointment model.
The government has proposed an alternative amendment. This amendment would require that the government set, in a notifiable instrument, the selection criteria to be used in a selection process and to set out the process itself. This builds on the 2007 announcement by the government where it publicised in the media the selection criteria and the selection process. By setting the criteria and process in an instrument, the government is committing itself to using them for judicial appointments in the future. The Greens believe this is a sensible step that can only increase the transparency of the process without going the extra step of giving the committee a role.
The government’s proposal is similar to the Liberals’ in that it seeks to increase the transparency in the appointment process. However, it addresses that same objective without opening up the potential risks associated with the original bill that I have spoken to earlier. There would be no potential for politicising the process and it would not unsettle the accepted role of the executive in making appointments. It is on that basis that the Greens will be supporting the government’s amendments.
On a personal note, I would like to acknowledge that, on behalf of the Greens, I advised Mrs Dunne very late in the process—in fact just this morning—of our final position. I acknowledge that the Greens were initially attracted to the proposal that
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