Ceremonial - Announcement of Appointment of Senior Counsel - Canberra

[2013] HCATrans 3

[2013] HCATrans 003

H I G H   C O U R T   O F   A U S T R A L I A

CEREMONIAL SITTING

ON THE OCCASION

OF

THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF APPOINTMENT

OF

SENIOR COUNSEL

Coram:          FRENCH CJ

HAYNE J
HEYDON J
CRENNAN J
KIEFEL J
BELL J
GAGELER J
The Hon Michael McHUGH AC, QC

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT CANBERRA ON MONDAY, 4 FEBRUARY 2013, AT 3.30 PM

The following Queen’s Counsel, Senior Counsel and counsel were seated at the Bar table:

Mr D.F. Jackson QC

Mr D.M.J. Bennett QC

Mr B. Coles QC

Mr B.W. Walker SC

Mr P. Greenwood SC

Mr M. Colbran QC

Mr C. Colvin SC, President of the Australian Bar Association

Ms F. McLeod SC, Chair of the Victorian Bar Council

Mr R. Traves SC, President of the Bar Association of Queensland

Ms R. Webb QC

Mr M. Livesey QC

Mr P. O’Sullivan QC, President of the South Australian Bar Association

Mr M. O’Farrell SC, President of the Tasmanian Bar

Mr G. Stretton SC, President of the Australian Capital Territory Bar Association

Mr P. Quinlan SC, President of the Western Australian Bar Association

Mr P. Walker

Ms R. Martin

FRENCH CJ:   Mr Stretton, President of the Australian Capital Territory Bar Association.

MR STRETTON:   May it please the Court, I inform the Court that the following member of the Bar here present has been appointed as Senior Counsel for the Australian Capital Territory. 

Stuart Hearne Pilkinton who ranks in seniority after Gregory
Alan Stretton

FRENCH CJ:   Thank you, Mr Stretton.  President of the Bar Association of South Australia, Mr O’Sullivan.

MR O’SULLIVAN:   May it please the Court, I inform the Court that the following members of the Bar here present have been appointed as Senior Counsel for the State of South Australia. 

Sandra McDonald who ranks in seniority after Andrew Leonard Tokley

Christopher David Bleby who ranks in seniority after Sandra McDonald

Thomas Patrick Duggan who ranks in seniority after Christopher David Bleby

Samuel John Doyle who ranks in seniority after Thomas Patrick Duggan

FRENCH CJ:   Thank you, Mr O’Sullivan.  Ms Webb, representing the President of the Northern Territory Bar.

MS WEBB:   May it please the Court, I inform the Court that the following member of the Bar here present has been appointed as Senior Counsel for the Northern Territory. 

Ian Read who ranks in seniority after John Benjamin Lawrence

FRENCH CJ:   Thank you, Ms Webb.  Mr Coles, representing the President of the New South Wales Bar Association.

MR COLES:   May it please the Court, I inform the Court that the following members of the Bar here present have been appointed as Senior Counsel in the State of New South Wales:

They are:

Chrissa Teresa Loukas who ranks in seniority after Michael John Jenkins

Duncan Ewing Graham who ranks in seniority after Matthew Charles Dicker

Michael John Fordham who ranks in seniority after Duncan Ewing Graham

Miles Kevin Condon who ranks in seniority after Michael John Fordham

Elizabeth Anne Cheeseman who ranks in seniority after Miles Kevin Condon

Kylie Therese Nomchong who ranks in seniority after Elizabeth Anne Cheeseman

Carol Ann Webster who ranks in seniority after Kylie Therese Nomchong

Ingmar Taylor who ranks in seniority after Carol Ann Webster

Dean Jordan who ranks in seniority after Ingmar Taylor

Julia Lily Ann Lonergan who ranks in seniority after Dean Jordan

Anthony John McInerney who ranks in seniority after Julia Lily Ann Lonergan

Katherine Louise Eastman who ranks in seniority after Anthony John McInerney

Nicholas John Kidd who ranks in seniority after Katherine Louise Eastman

Thomas Michael Thawley who ranks in seniority after Nicholas John Kidd

Kelly Anne Rees who ranks in seniority after Thomas Michael Thawley

Sarah Elizabeth Pritchard who ranks in seniority after Kelly Anne Rees

Michael Goffet McHugh who ranks in seniority after Sarah Elizabeth Pritchard

Nicole Frances Noman who ranks in seniority after Michael Goffet McHugh

Michael Patrick Kearney who ranks in seniority after Nicole Frances Noman

Natalie Jane Adams who ranks in seniority after Michael Patrick Kearney

John Hunter Pickering who ranks in seniority after Natalie Jane Adams

Jennie Ann Girdham who ranks in seniority after John Hunter Pickering

FRENCH CJ:   Thank you, Mr Coles.  Mr Traves, President of the Bar Association of Queensland.

MR TRAVES:   May it please the Court, I inform the Court that the following members of the Bar here present have been appointed as Senior Counsel for the State of Queensland.

They are:

Dean Patrick Morzone who ranks in seniority after Susan Elizabeth Brown

Philip Andrew Looney who ranks in seniority after Dean Patrick Morzone

FRENCH CJ:   Thank you, Mr Traves.  Ms McLeod, Chair of the Victorian Bar Council.

MS McLEOD:   May it please the Court, I inform the Court that the following members of the Bar here present have been appointed as Senior Counsel in and for the State of Victoria.

Trevor Stanley Monti who ranks in seniority after Michael James Croucher

Suzanne Bridget McNicol who ranks in seniority after Trevor Stanley Monti

Peter George Sest who ranks in seniority after Suzanne Bridget McNicol

Aileen Mary Ryan who ranks in seniority after Peter George Sest

Christopher William Beale who ranks in seniority after Aileen Mary Ryan

George Antony Georgiou who ranks in seniority after Christopher William Beale

Mark Andrew Robins who ranks in seniority after George Antony Georgiou

Benjamin Andrew Shnookal who ranks in seniority after Mark Andrew Robins

Philip David Corbett who ranks in seniority after Benjamin Andrew Shnookal

Michael Grant Roberts who ranks in seniority after Philip David Corbett

Alistair Neill Murdoch who ranks in seniority after Michael Grant Roberts

Nicholas David Hopkins who ranks in seniority after Nicholas Pane

Carolyn Hayley Sparke who ranks in seniority after Nicholas David Hopkins

Edvard William Alstergren who ranks in seniority after Kevin Joseph Aloysius Lyons

Andrew David Clements who ranks in seniority after Edvard William Alstergren

Adrian John Finanzio who ranks in seniority after Andrew David Clements

FRENCH CJ:   Thank you, Ms McLeod.Mr Quinlan, President of the Western Australian Bar Association.

MR QUINLAN:   May it please the Court, I inform the Court that the following member of the Bar here present has been appointed as Senior Counsel for the State of Western Australia.

He is:

Joshua Andrew Thomson who ranks in seniority after Rodney Stuart Hooper

FRENCH CJ:   Thank you, Mr Quinlan.  I call on counsel at the Bar table generally for motions.  I acknowledge the representatives of the Bar Associations of the States and Territories, the President of the Australian Bar Association and the presence at the Bar table of Senior Counsel, Messrs Jackson, Bennett, Walker, Greenwood, Colbran and Livesey.

We are joined on the Bench today by the Honourable Michael McHugh, AC, a former justice of this Court, who is here in a parental capacity.  Also present in Court are Justice Habersberger, representing the Chief Justice of Victoria, and Mr Catanzariti, the President of the Law Council of Australia.

Before making my remarks to the new Senior Counsel I should note that this is the last occasion on which Justice Heydon will sit with all of us.  He did not want any speeches to mark his retirement but I could not let the occasion pass without acknowledging his service to this Court and to the nation.

With the other members of the Court, I welcome the family and friends of the new Senior Counsel.  Among them is the Honourable John Doyle AC, former Chief Justice of South Australia, who is here with his wife, Marie, also in a parental capacity.  The level of professional commitment that is necessary in order to attain the office of Senior Counsel is difficult to sustain without the support of family and friends.  Your attendance today is indicative of that support.

On behalf of the members of the Court I congratulate the newly appointed Senior Counsel.  This annual ceremony in which you participate in the national capital before the High Court of Australia underlines the fact that you are part of a national legal profession, albeit one with an increasingly global outlook, and that you practice in the courts of a national judicial system.

Your appointments indicate that you have the confidence of the legal profession, that you have attained a high degree of professional excellence, and that you have the attributes of integrity and independence which should mark you as exemplars and leaders in the profession.  It is predominantly, although not exclusively, from your ranks that members of the senior judiciary are appointed.

The office which each of you has accepted has a long and rather untidy ancestry.  That is a characteristic it shares with most legal institutions.  It is salutary to recall that before King’s and Queen’s Counsel emerged in England the Serjeants at Law, whom they displaced, had dominated the upper reaches of the legal profession for hundreds of years.  The office of Serjeant was described by Chief Justice Tindal in 1840 as:

“As high, at the least, as the existence of the Court itself . . . ”

That height and dominance were not, in the end, a protection against evolutionary forces.  In an article which appeared in the Australian Law Journal in 1978, J.M. Bennet wrote of the disappearance of the Serjeants.  He said:

“The evolution in this case . . . not only reduced the stature of the oldest, and once most powerful limb of the legal profession, but at length carried it wholly into extinction”.

That quotation is not intended to prepare you for imminent extinction.  But it is useful to recall the history, because it reminds us that the law, the profession and our legal institutions have always evolved and continue to do so.  There are two important pressures for change today.  One is the repeatedly acknowledged and seemingly chronic gap between the extent of the demand for affordable and timely access to justice and our capacity to deliver it.  Associated with that is our common consciousness that the time and resources available to the courts and parties who appear in them, are finite.  That limitation requires counsel, and particularly Senior Counsel in their day‑to‑day work, to make judgments about what is important and what is not in the preparation and presentation of litigation.  Senior Counsel must be able to see the wood for the trees.  They also have a stake in contributing to more systemic responses.  The cost and delays associated with the administration of justice today, despite many improvements in case management and court procedures, contribute to the increased resort to non‑judicial dispute resolution mechanisms which are important and valuable, but which do not provide the public, open and authoritative administration of justice according to law, which is the function of the courts.

A second pressure for change is the increasingly global character of important areas of legal practice involving cross‑jurisdictional transactions and litigation and transnational dispute resolution mechanisms.  It is a phenomenon requiring co‑operation at a national level between our courts and the legal profession and the courts and legal professions of other countries which may have different histories and cultures and sometimes different legal traditions.  It is important for all of us, and in particular for you, as the new leaders of the profession, to be conscious of these things, to think about how to respond to them and to participate in shaping our responses in the national interest.

The honour which each of you has been given carries responsibilities.  The most immediate of them lies in the advice you offer and the advocacy you provide for your clients.  The client may be an individual in a personal crisis with a legal dimension which may affect his or her wellbeing, reputation or liberty.  It may be a corporation or a public authority or a government seeking advice and representation about complex transactions, the exercise of regulatory powers, or the interpretation and validity of laws.  The difficulty and complexity of the matters on which you will be asked to act may vary according to the kind of practice you have and from time to time within your practice.  Each case, however, will require the same high level of care, commitment, integrity and independence.

What you do, and particularly what you do in the courts, has a public dimension.  If done to the high standard which your office requires, it is not just a demonstration of your capacity and skill.  What you do will be a repeated demonstration of the law at work.

The public dimension of your calling is also manifested when you are able to provide your services to those you cannot afford legal representation and whom the limited resources of legal aid cannot assist, or cannot assist to the extent necessary to do justice to their case.  When counsel who are leaders in the profession offer their services in such cases, a powerful signal is sent to the wider community about the Bar and the values which underpin it.

The office of Senior Counsel has a long and honourable history of which you are now part.  On behalf of the Court, I again congratulate you on your appointments and wish you well in your continuing careers at the Bar.

The Court will adjourn until 10.15 tomorrow.

AT 3.43 PM THE COURT ADJOURNED