Archive
Tag: High Court of Australia
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The aftermath
After Kipling, presumably: “After a ‘great’ constitutional case, the tumult and the shouting dies. The captains and the kings depart. Or at least the captains do; the Queen in Parliament remains forever. Solicitors-General go. New Solicitors-General come. This world is transitory. But some things never change. The flame of the Commonwealth’s hatred for that beneficial… Read more →
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The literary Justice Heydon
“This great renversement des alliances created a new and unexpected hurdle for the defendants. So the Court was as on a darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night – although the parties were more surprised than ignorant.” Williams v Commonwealth [2012] HCA 23 (20 June 2012) Read more →
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“MR GLEESON: Your Honour, that hypothesis would remove some of the critical planks that I am relying…”
“ MR GLEESON: Your Honour, that hypothesis would remove some of the critical planks that I am relying upon, but not all of them. It would remove some of the critical planks because we would no longer have punishment per se, we would no longer have the public order injunction. We would be closer to… Read more →
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Free choice and compulsion
GLEESON CJ: What do you mean by “free choice”? TEHAN QC: What we mean by “free choice”, your Honour, is a choice unconstrained by any pressure, hope of advantage or benefit or force or coercion or compulsion, a true free choice. GLEESON CJ: You would be surprised to know that there are places I would… Read more →
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The Lesson
GAUDRON J: Now, would you like to read section 80 of the Constitution, Mr Wilson? MR WILSON: Read section 80? GAUDRON J: Yes, that is what – and see exactly what it relates to. MR WILSON: I will read section 80 of the Constitution. It says: The trial on indictment of any offence against any… Read more →
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The Dictator
MR WILSON: Down in Canberra they have erect the Magna Carta monument. Have you been to see it? You will not answer? Mr Callinan, have you seen it? CALLINAN J: Look, you cannot really ask me questions, but, yes, I did see it, Mr Wilson. MR WILSON: Well, this is a two-way thing, you were… Read more →
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Logically incontestable
Counsel for the States started with the proposition that disputes are either industrial or not industrial. That is logically incontestable; and, as was said by counsel in Repton v Hodgson in a sentence which Jordan CJ brought to light in an essay, ‘Like Sinclair’s well-known division of sleeping into two sorts, namely, sleeping with or… Read more →
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A wrong thing
To read words into any statute is a strong thing and, in the absence of clear necessity, a wrong thing …Western Australia v Commonwealth (1975) 134 CLR 201, 251. Sir Ninian Stephen’s oft-cited epigram on a fundamental matter of statutory interpretation: Stephen_134_CLR_201.pdf (PDF) Read more →
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Learned and experienced counsel
[62] This is an appeal from the Chief Justice, which was argued by this Court over nine days, with some occasional assistance from the learned and experienced counsel who appeared for the parties. The evidence was taken and the matter argued before the Chief Justice in two days. This case involves two questions, of no… Read more →
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An early funeral
‘George, are you sure it’s worth your while to go home?’Anecdotal Sir Heydon Erskine Starke had a reputation for his undirected and irascible wit. One — strictly unreported and anecdotal — quotation that is attributed to his Honour concerns a comment made at the funeral of Sir Isaac Isaacs. Reportedly, he was walking beside his… Read more →