Gleeson CJ - Welcome Sydney CER

[1998] HCATrans 227

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

SPECIAL SITTING

WELCOME TO

THE HONOURABLE CHIEF JUSTICE ANTHONY MURRAY GLEESON, AC

AT

SYDNEY

ON

FRIDAY, 19 JUNE 1998, AT 9.15 AM

GLEESON CJ

Speakers:

The Hon. J.W. Shaw, QC, Attorney‑General for New South Wales

Mr R.K. Heinrich, President, Law Society of New South Wales

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

GLEESON CJ:   Mr Attorney.

MR SHAW:   May it please, your Honour.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome on behalf of the Bar of New South Wales your Honour the Chief Justice to your first sitting in Sydney.

There has, of course, been much discussion of your Honour’s appointment to the High Court of Australia and it has been universally positive.  You have been praised as a fine advocate and an outstanding jurist who will render distinguished service in the country’s highest judicial office.

The members of the Sydney Bar and the Sydney legal community are particularly pleased by your Honour’s appointment, because you are one of us, and the assumption of your current office has taken place in the context of your outstanding service as Chief Justice of New South Wales.  I have had an opportunity at another time to express the loss the New South Wales jurisdiction felt upon your appointment, but will not let that detract from our welcome to you as the new Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.

It could be said that it might have been dangerous not to appoint your Honour to the High Court.  Sir Owen Dixon warned of the possible consequences of not appointing eminent Chief Justices in his retirement speech from the Court.  His Honour said:

‘there were two tragedies in the life of the High Court which did not depend on a particular event or a particular thing, but which just went on.  One was the failure of the Commonwealth Government to appoint Sir Leo Cussen to this Bench, and the other was the failure of the Commonwealth Government to appoint Sir Frederick Jordan to this Bench.....As far as Chief Justice Sir Frederick Jordan is concerned, I really do not know what, if anything, happened; but at all events he was not appointed, and by one of those curious twists which seem to touch the finest natures, this highly scholarly man and very great lawyer eventually took some queer views about federalism’.

Fortuitously, your Honour has been saved from such a fate!

Your Honour’s writ ran throughout New South Wales, and now it knows no bounds.  It runs throughout the land.  The whole country will benefit from your Honour’s wisdom and capacity to conduct the affairs of the Court.

Although your Honour’s judicial home will now be in Canberra, no doubt your Honour will preside regularly on special leave applications in this city.  In that capacity, you will see the finest advocacy that the Sydney Bar can muster.  The disciple of attempting to persuade the Court of one’s argument of important principle and public interest within the 20 minute time restriction does wonders to focus one’s argument and results in succinct, persuasive argument.  As Dr Johnson remarked:

‘Depend on it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully’.

Your Honour, the Sydney Bar looks forward to these occasions to once again appear before the Court with your Honour presiding, in addition, of course, to the appearances in Canberra, and we wish you well in your new role as Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.

May it please the Court.

GLEESON CJ:   Thank you, Mr Attorney.  Mr Heinrich.

MR HEINRICH:   May it please the Court.

On behalf of the solicitors of New South Wales, it is my great pleasure to welcome your Honour back for your first sittings in Sydney.

I recall last time when we were all together at your farewell, your Honour made a point of the need for brevity at such occasions.  And so I shall be.

Particularly knowing your first Sydney sitting is just minutes away and that I, in a rare appearance before you, might be served no better than distinguished members of the Bar and told simply to stop when a point has been sufficiently made.

The legal profession and the wider community are privileged and, indeed, very fortunate, to have you leading the highest Court in this nation.  Yours is a judicious hand which extends to all people as equals, to deliver justice in situations which matter a great deal.

Your said recently that we are living in a time of challenge to everyone concerned with the administration of civil and criminal justice, where courts are made battlegrounds in social, economic and commercial conflict.

While we might like to see less battle, it is not harmony that leads to a matter being argued before your Honour and your new judicial colleagues.  So battleground, while imperfect, we might have to live with.

So long as the weapons are words, the rules are just, and the outcomes are respected, the people of Australia should also never take them for granted.  We have a good justice system, an independent system deserving of support and respect.

Solicitors in this State know this system is in responsible and confident hands.

Once again, on behalf of the solicitors branch of the profession, congratulations on your appointment and welcome back to your first Sydney sittings.

If the Court pleases.

GLEESON CJ:   Mr Attorney, Mr Heinrich, and members of the profession and others attending this occasion. 

In my case, a welcome from the New South Wales legal profession is more of a symbolic event than a practical opportunity to meet the local practitioners.  Most of us here know one another very well.  But the symbolism is important, because it reflects the relationship between the Court and the practising profession.  That is a relationship that is often criticised and leads to a measure of suspicion and distrust on the part of some who see themselves as outsiders.  We need to be sensitive to such perceptions. 

We also need to bear in mind that there are many lawyers who are not legal practitioners, and who make an important contribution to jurisprudence and to the administration of justice.

Even so, we ought to remind ourselves of the strengths as well as the weaknesses of our system, and there are two strengths that are worth mentioning on an occasion such as this.

The Chief Justices of this Court have come from a variety of backgrounds.  Two of us were former Chief Justices of State Supreme Courts; one was a former Premier; three were former Commonwealth Attorneys‑General; some were Justices of this Court or other courts before their appointment.  But they all had one thing in common.  They were all experienced legal practitioners.  The result is that they had a working knowledge of litigation from the inside.  They were familiar with the ways of litigants and lawyers and judges and juries.  They knew the trial process, and they knew from first‑hand experience the strengths and weaknesses of the adversary system.  We take that for granted, but when you think about it, it would be a strange, and perhaps even alarming, situation if it were otherwise.

The Attorney quoted from Dr Johnson.  It was Dr Johnson who said, when Boswell made a complimentary remark about an elderly and long‑serving judge, of whom Johnson had no high opinion, that if a man travelled, every day for many years, from Glasgow to Edinburgh, it would be a surprise if he did not become acquainted with some of the scenery on the way.

The second matter is that this Court relies on the assistance of legal practitioners.  The basic assumption of the system is that justice is best served if the decision‑maker hears strong arguments on both sides of the question.  There are two aspects of that proposition which need emphasis.  The assumption is that strong arguments will be put on both sides of the question; and the other assumption is that the decision‑maker will listen to them.

Even with the increasing importance of written material and the reduced time for argument, this Court depends heavily upon legal practitioners to present their clients’ cases to their best advantage, and to discharge their responsibilities to the Court.

The remorseless intensification of the pressure of business should never lead the legal profession to assume that judges are impatiently sitting waiting for argument to conclude so that they can go away to their chambers and do their own research.  The system was never intended to work like that, and does not work like that.

I am grateful for your welcome because it gives me an opportunity, on behalf of the Court, to acknowledge the assistance that the Court needs from legal practitioners; assistance which it constantly receives.

The Court will adjourn to reconstitute.

AT 9.24 AM THE COURT ADJOURNED