Ceremonial - Brennan CJ, Gummow - Welcome to Brisbane - CER

[1995] HCATrans 173

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

SPECIAL SITTING

WELCOME TO

CHIEF JUSTICE SIR GERARD BRENNAN AC, KBE

AND

JUSTICE WILLIAM MONTAGUE CHARLES GUMMOW

AT

BRISBANE

ON

MONDAY, 19 JUNE 1995 AT 2.00 PM

Coram:

BRENNAN CJ
GUMMOW J

Speakers:

MR W. Sofronoff, QC, President of the Bar Association of Queensland

MR J. O’Sullivan, President of the Law Society of Queensland

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

BRENNAN CJ:   Mr Sofronoff.

MR SOFRONOFF:   On behalf of the Queensland Bar, may I welcome the High Court back to Brisbane again and, in particular, to welcome you home, Chief Justice, and to welcome you, Justice Gummow, for the first time to Brisbane as a Justice of the High Court.

It is no coincidence that we hold the annual Bar dinner at this time, this winter week, in Brisbane every year because the Bar traditionally regards the visit of the High Court as the high point of the legal year.  We have turned on a typical winter’s day for you in Brisbane - blue sky, sunshine - and we trust that the warmth of our hospitality can outdo our winter’s day, and that you have a productive and stimulating visit here.

BRENNAN CJ:   Thank you, Mr Sofronoff.  Mr O’Sullivan.

MR O’SULLIVAN:   May it please the Court.  Chief Justice, may I say what a great pleasure it is to be given the opportunity to congratulate your Honour on your appointment as Chief Justice of the High Court, and also to congratulate you, Mr Justice Gummow, on your appointment to the Court.

Chief Justice, I believe we are actually born about the same time but your youthful appearance belies that.  However, it did give me the opportunity of knowing you whilst you were at the Bar in Brisbane and I have followed with interest your route to your present exalted position in the legal profession.  I recall with pleasure our meetings over the years and, in particular, the occasion when I visited the new High Court building in Canberra.  You have been a guest speaker on a number of occasions over the years at the Law Society functions, and you have always been and will always remain a very welcome guest of the Law Society, amongst whose members you are very highly respected.

I do not need to tell you that you have taken over the job of Chief Justice at a very challenging moment in the history of the Court and its relationship with both government and the community.  The events of the last few years in which the Court has, unwillingly on its part, become the subject of some widespread controversy are well known to us all.  There is no doubt that the Court’s profile in the community and the willingness of some, sometimes in the pursuit of their own ends, to unfairly criticise the work of the Court means that the Court will undoubtedly work in a more pressurised environment than ever before.

Of course, a feature of the work of the Court is the extent to which government, on occasions, leaves difficult matters to find their way to this Court, matters which government might otherwise legislate to deal with, but does not because of the lack of courage or political will to do so.  Nonetheless, anyone who takes time to consider the make‑up of the High Court Bench, including its new Chief Justice and its most recent appointment, your Honours, cannot have anything but the utmost confidence that here we have a Court that is more than capable of meeting these challenges in all respects. 

Mr Justice Gummow, your Honour, you are well known to us all, if not personally then by your legal writings and by your time on the Federal Court where you served with considerable distinction.  After the public speculation that took place prior to the appointment of a new member of this Court, during the course of which many fine candidates’ names were bandied around, it was, nonetheless, with enormous satisfaction that we learned of your appointment.  I am sure that your enviable reputation for scholarship, fairness and intellect will equip you to discharge your functions in outstanding fashion. 

Chief Justice, I did recently have the opportunity of reading the report of an address given by you to the School of Law at Bond University on the subject of the Irish and law in Australia, which I found of particular interest, being the son of an Irish‑born lawyer.  Such a paper in Australia today would be remiss if it did not make reference to your contribution to the development of law in Australia.  In seeking words to describe you, the author of such a paper could well adopt the description used by Sir Frank Gavan Duffy to describe that illustrious member of the Court, Henry Bournes Higgins, a man of the most sterling integrity and kindliest nature. 

On behalf of the solicitors of Queensland and the counsel of the Queensland Law Society, I congratulate you, Chief Justice, on your appointment; and I congratulate you, Mr Justice Gummow on your appointment.  I also take this opportunity to offer to all the members of the Court the support and encouragement of the Queensland Law Society and its members.  May it please the Court.

BRENNAN CJ:   Thank you, Mr O’Sullivan. 

Your Honours, members of the Bar, members of the solicitors’ branch of the profession, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure for me to be welcomed by the Queensland profession.  The Queensland Bar is my professional home and I enjoyed a long and satisfying relationship with the solicitors of this State.  This occasion affords me the opportunity to acknowledge my indebtedness to colleagues in both branches of the Queensland legal profession who, by their high standards and personal dispositions, made life at the Bar in this State a source of great personal satisfaction and of happy and oftentimes amusing memories.  Of course, many of my contemporaries are no longer engaged in active practice:  some have accepted judicial appointment, some have retired, some have gone to a higher place, but some, whom I see here today, remain.

I express my thanks to you, Mr Sofronoff, for your second speech of welcome and to you, Mr O’Sullivan, whose presence here recalls a long and happy association.  But your attendance here today is not so much personal as it is institutional.  It is not less welcome on that account.  The practice of this Court since its inception has been to sit in Brisbane for the hearing of appeals.  I would  hope that that practice will be able long to continue, for it gives the profession an opportunity to know more of the Court, its work and the issues which fall for its consideration, and it gives the Court an opportunity to appreciate the Courts, the practitioners and the issues of legal significance that arise in this State.

We are honoured by the attendance here today of Judges of the  Federal Court of Australia, the Supreme Court of Queensland, including the Court of Appeal, the Family Court of Australia and the District Court of Queensland.  The presence of so many friends in judicial office and some who have already served in judicial office is, for me, a considerable pleasure.  I would mention especially the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Macrossan.  He, the Chief Judge of the District Court, Judge Shanahan, and I were admitted on the same day and we were taken into chambers next to each other on the 3rd floor of the Inns of Court at 21 Adelaide Street under the tutelage of our respective masters,  Andrews and Douglas as they then were.  But this is not the time for reminiscence.

The presence of their Honours has another significance. It emphasises the jurisdiction of this Court as part of the judicature of Queensland considered both as part of the Commonwealth and as the State. The genius of the founding fathers avoided the bifurcation of judicial power that was a feature of the American Constitution. By force of Chapers III and V of our Constitution, there is an integrated system of law to govern our nation, unified - or perhaps more accurately - co-ordinated by the High Court. The Court was thus required to exercise both the function of a Constitutional court and the function of determining appeals in all justiciable matters that might come from the State Supreme Court, from Federal courts or from courts exercising federal jurisdiction.

This arrangement determined the judicial method that would be adopted in this Court. The traditionally rigorous reasoning which was the hallmark of the ordinary courts of civil and criminal jurisdiction would be applied to the law of the Constitution, and the law of the Constitution would control the development of the ordinary civil and criminal law in the several jurisdictions from which appeals could be brought to the High Court.

Sir Owen Dixon’s dictum about strict and complete legalism has been thought to be too rigid a description of the manner in which the Court exercises its jurisdiction, but if the dictum is varied to “strict and complete modes of legal reasoning”, it is a tolerably accurate description of the way in which the Court has gone about its work and does so today.

The arguments which the Court is accustomed to hear in this State have been of a high order and their assistance to the Court has been substantial.  It gives me not a little pride to acknowledge the assistance that has been given by Queensland practitioners.  I thank you for your presence here today as a further indication of the respect in which you, as well as we, hold the Court on which we serve.

GUMMOW J:   Judicial colleagues, members of the profession, ladies and gentlemen.  I thank you, Mr Sofronoff and Mr O’Sullivan for your kind remarks.  It is very pleasing, indeed, for me to be sitting here today as a High Court Judge in the capital of the State of Queensland.  I am, of course, no stranger to this new edifice.  News of the success of the efforts of my colleague, Spender, in helping to bring about the design and construction of this building in such a very quick time spread throughout the Federal Court.  I managed to get myself up here for a Full Court sitting very soon after the building was open and was then, and still am, extremely impressed by what had been achieved.  It certainly made an enormous improvement upon the awful conditions of the previous accommodation.

It used to be said by some in other parts of the country that the Queensland profession sheltered behind barriers to entry, and a metaphor was used to describe the nature of the obstruction - barriers to entry by other lawyers for fear of what might happen if the massed hordes in the south crossed the Tweed.  One should say that certainly many legal scholars never displayed any such view.  I grew up in the law in the Law School in Sydney and before us we had, for closest attention and rewarding attention, the writings of such people as Professor Harrison in real property, whose son is now a silk at the Bar here; and the writings of Professor Lumb in constitutional law.  More recently, Professor Sykes and Mr Tony Lee have entered into joint authorship with Victorians to produce leading works on private international law and trusts.  It should be said that the publication, which I remember well, in 1968, of the first edition of McPherson’s ”Law of Company Liquidation”, was of major significance to commercial practitioners across Australia. 

Now, Queensland firms of solicitors lead the Australian push into the legal work in Asia.  I need refer only to the significant work done on the construction of the new Hong Kong airport, a massive legal, as well as engineering, undertaking.  In addition, counsel from the Queensland Bar are now found in courts all around the country, from Sydney to Perth, and where they appear, of course, with the greatest effect.  All of this must be for the good of the law as a whole, and entirely in the public interest. 

Once again, I thank you for what has been said and for the honour done to us and to the Court as a whole by the attendance of so many here this afternoon.

AT 2.18 PM THE COURT ADJOURNED