God cancels judges’ birthdays … Freedom from religious violence … Victorian barristers told to be nice to each other … Pole positions for NSW CJ … Judge whacks silk for unworthiness … Theodora reports 

GOD traditionally and helpfully had provided details of the precise dates of the compulsory retirement of Federal Court and Circus Court judges. 

You can see here how this was so, courtesy of the ever-helpful Wayback Machine. 

This was useful because after being given a rough trot by a beak sitting in the Circus or a judge in the Federal Court, counsel could go back to chambers and count the number of days the wretch remained on the bench. 

Now that’s changed. No more dates, just the year of retirement. This will stop counsel singing “Happy Birthday” in court or maybe prevent judge-shopping by means of filing papers with deft timing.

From the Wayback Machine we can see that Federal Court retirements for this year include: 

And next year we can look forward to the departures of: 

Of course, anyone can thumb through Who’s Who trying to find the last day a judge has to turn up to work – but then you have to put up with bumph about golf clubs, schools, baubles and wives (husbands or partners) and other proclivities. 

It created offences with up to three years porridge for offences including publicly threatening or inciting violence on grounds of religious belief or affiliation.

In view of the Commonwealth’s abortive, absurdly complex and unnecessary Religious Discrimination Bill, this provision of the NSW Crimes Act takes on special pertinence. 

It relation to religious belief or affiliation it says that anyone who by a public act intentionally or recklessly threatens or incites violence towards a person or a group commits an offence. 

Similarly, the provision applies to threats or incitements of violence on the grounds of race, sexual orientation, gender identity or people who are intersex or with HIV/AIDS. 

The Act provides a fundamental protection for the personal safety of religious or other vulnerable people. It replaced the old section 20D of the Anti-Discrimination Act, NSW. 

You’d think that this provision of the Crimes Act would give god-fearing citizens some cover – except that section 93Z has turned out to be a bit of a fizzer. 

Attorney General Mark Speakman last year told an estimates hearing that only two prosecutions under the section had been launched, but had to be annulled because they didn’t get the DPP’s approval – a requirement under the Act. 

In reply to a question on the notice paper from former shadow attorney general Paul Lynch MP, the AG said on December 21, 2021: 

“No further proceedings have been commenced in relation to the annulled convictions. Decisions to commence proceedings under section 93Z of the Crimes Act are a matter for the NSW Police Force and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.”

Of the six people charged with offences under the fearsome section, two convictions were annulled in 2021, two charges withdrawn in the same year, with two matters still standing. 

Further, a special practice development committee has been created to examine how to generate more work for Victoria’s barristers. This means working out ways to eat bigger portions of solicitors’ lunch. 

Then we hear that after meeting with people in charge of various bar committees, president Róisín Annesley felt it necessary to prompt people that we’re in a new found era of politeness and human decency: 

“I remind all members of the importance of respectful interactions when dealing with each other at the committee level and with Vic Bar staff.” 

We’re hearing the same messages over the loudspeakers at supermarkets. “Shoppers, please stop being vile.” 

Taco Bell, the president of the court of appeal, and Justice Julie Ward, head of equity, are still top of the list without the emergence of any new fresh alternatives. 

Here are Theodora’s thoughts about Julie Ward from July last year, and here we have a selection of our top news reports about Taco: 

The unhappiness occurred in Dexus Holdings v Sinelec Australia where Dexus sued the defendant over the installation of a generator, which exploded. 

Sinelec filed a defence that said it didn’t contract with the plaintiff, but with another entity. This was correct because the plaintiff was a related part of the owner of the building with the exploding generator. 

Dexus sought leave to amend so that the correct party was suing. 

The defendant resisted. Apparently the writ had been filed one day before the expiration of the limitation period, so it seemed the defence was seeking to take advantage of the fact that the new claim would be out of time. 

There was an order to confer with a “division lawyer”. At that point the defence had not set out the basis of its objection to the plaintiff’s application. The judge  said this showed a “pattern of conduct on behalf of the defendant to remain coy, to put it mildly …”

When the submissions were filed, the judge found them inadequate or in HH’s words: 

“… An affront both to the plaintiff and the court and unworthy of the counsel named.” 

Judge Woodward found the defendant’s submissions to be deficient, unhelpful and uncooperative – in potential breach of obligations under the Civil Procedure Act. 

“It is not a sustainable ground for opposing the application, and (as noted above) was not an argument advanced by senior counsel for the defendant on the hearing of the application. It therefore appears to be no more than a casual (and irrelevant) observation. 

In my view, the submissions as a whole (and this sentence in particular) were an affront both to the plaintiff and to the court and unworthy of the counsel named.”

Ouch.