Page 4498 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 14 October 2009
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the Law Society would like us to go further—we do not agree with them on that—they say:
Your Bill is a worthy initiative because it advances the causes of transparency and merit in the appointment of judicial officers. The Society has advocated for a long time a method of judicial appointment which is open for all to see and results in the appointment of people of the highest intellect, knowledge, experience and probity.
It is worth reflecting on that. That is what this bill is about. We will be getting a much lesser form of that, in our opinion, if and when these amendments are adopted by the Assembly. Therefore, I think it is particularly disappointing. We saw part of how this first came to be an issue here in the ACT. It was back in January 2008 when the ACT Bar Association called for an overhaul of the Australian judicial appointment process. I quote from ABC Online:
Two new judges were appointed to the ACT Supreme Court last month.
This was in January 2008. It continues:
They are former ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Richard Refshauge and Hilary Penfold, who was the Secretary of Parliamentary Services.
But president of the local Bar Association … says the ACT Government failed to consult the Chief Justice, the Law Society and himself about one of the appointments.
He is quoted at the time as saying:
It’s taken us back to the days I suppose where judicial appointments are an act of mystery.
We have sought to put in place some legislation which would address this issue whilst maintaining the importance of the executive choosing judges. We have seen a debate in the Assembly about Latimer House principles. I made this point, which I will repeat here:
On the point of judicial appointments, though, I think there is scope for us to be more open. We believe that the executive should still have the ability to make judicial appointments.
We do believe … that there can be more openness in the way that is done.
That is what we have suggested in terms of the legislation. With respect to the basic principles, we hear about Latimer House, we hear about the apparent commitment by members in this place to openness, transparency and a new way of doing things. Of course, we see this in so many cases. In some of the debates today in relation to the Auditor-General having a role, we hear spurious arguments against that, when we are looking for accountability and transparency. We have heard some spurious arguments, it must be said, in relation to this. The US-style appointments are simply not possible under this legislation. It has not happened to date with statutory appointments. It
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