Senior judges concerned over suggestion that Judge Vasta of the Circuit Court would be promoted to sit in the Family Court … Concerns may have prompted early circulation of appeal judgments all highly critical of Vasta’s judgments … To cap it off, Sal is now a defendant in a Queensland defamation case 

Latest news on the Sal Vasta front is that the Federal Circuit Court judge is a defendant in a Queensland Supreme Court defamation case whose next listing date coming up on March 14.  

The plaintiffs are Brisbane solicitor Alex Kurschinsky and a former client of his law firm, who are suing News Corp and Vasta over a story in The Sunday Mail published in February 2017.  

The former client had applied for a de facto property settlement from a woman he claimed had been his partner. 

The Sunday Mail picked up the story with the headline, “Solicitor flouts court order to repay sex worker”. The report said that the judge ordered $197,226 from the sale of the woman’s house to be transferred to her from the firm’s trust account. Instead, allegedly, it ended up with Kurschinsky’s client. 

Sal had decided that the client was just a customer of the sex worker and not in a de facto relationship and that his orders for her to be paid had been treated in a manner that might be considered “outright contempt”. 

“I’m absolutely furious about what has happened,” Vasta was quoted as saying. 

Anyway, the story has ended up as a defamation action against the Sunday rag and Sal. 

In the meantime, the FCC judge has been on the receiving end of a series of decisions of the Full Family Court – all highly critical of the judicial handiwork of the Federal Circuit Court judge.

We’re talking about Stradford & Stradford, Navarro & Navarro and Lysons & Lysons. 

The appeal judgments were variously picked up and reported by legal affairs journalists at The Sydney Morning Herald, the Financial Review and Justinian, before the appeal courts published their reasons online. 

Well placed sources suggest that, somehow or other, these judgments found their way into the hands of the press to head off moves by The Christian Porter and chief justice Two Wigs Willy Alstergren to appoint Vasta to the Family Court. 

Serious family law judges didn’t want to see that happen in a fit. The powers that be at the Family Court deny that Vasta is being considered for elevation, yet the belief that the “the worst judge in Australia” was destined for a leg upwards is understood to have prompted something of a judicial fight-back.  

Willy must have faith in the hapless Sal, as last year he appointed him to a new job as the Circuit Court’s “national case management judge”.

In Stradford, “Toothbrush” Vasta, in blissful ignorance of the law, had sentenced a former husband in a property case to gaol for alleged contempt. 

The full court said he did so without jurisdiction or procedural fairness, and that it was “difficult to envisage a more profound or disturbing example of prejudgment”. 

In Navarro, a parenting case, again the original judge’s reasons were overturned because of his interruptions, argumentative behaviour, pejorative comments, remarks that demeaned the appellant’s counsel, bulling and threats of imprisonment. 

Lysons, according to the Financial Review, had a distinctive religious flavour with Vasta ordering a female same-sex couple to baptise their child in the Roman Catholic Church, an order which neither of the parties sought. 

The full court found there was no evidence that the baptism was necessary for the child to attend a Catholic school and that His Honour thought his order would help the child “understand why it was called into this world” and that “salvation” could be obtained by way of baptism. 

The full court judgment will be published online on Friday, March 1. 

Last year, Justinian reported another of Sal’s cases, Huda & Huda. Here, the appeal court said that Salvatore had not brought an impartial mind to a significant issue of credit in a property dispute. 

It was sent back to begin anew with anyone other than Sal. 

Even the Law Council is dismayed by the behaviour and is calling for a federal judicial commission to handle complaints. 

LCA president Arthur Moses said it was “unacceptable” that there was no independent mechanism to deal with complaints and the competency of federal judges.  

Going up a notch from the FCC to the Family Court makes all the difference in the world. It’s another $81,000 a year, plus a pension, which is not available to Circuit Court judges. 

The widespread publication of Stradford, Navarro and Lysons surely should be enough to head off Vasta’s contemplated elevation.