A retired judge’s knotted feelings … The fox prevails over the eagle … Lingering discomfort … Disclosure of sexual orientation a requirement for Pat Keane’s lecture … Constitutional mysteries unpacked on YouTube … Theodora reports  

Dean, in older dispatches, had been the subject of a bullying complaint concerning his treatment of a female barrister during a trial. 

Chief Judge Peter Kidd dismissed the complaint “after careful consideration”. 

Yet, that was not the end of concerns about his judicial style. Victoria’s Court of Appeal gave Deano a good lettucing in 2015 for repeatedly interrupting a prosecutor’s closing address to the jury, finding his intrusions “ill-timed, excessive, and, in some instances, expressed in intemperate terms”. 

The following year more wet lettuce was applied by appeal judges after Judge Dean called a defence barrister “stupid” and described the defendant and co-accused as “pathetic drug-addicts”. 

The intervening years has washed away these unfortunate memories and now Dean is sending his musings to Meanjin, where he describes in loving detail the journey from junior barrister, his application for silk, his appointment to the County Court, his conversion from SC to QC and now to KC.

He left the court on June 6, 2022 and afterwards went to “relax, unwind and reflect” in the Kimberley where he decided to rejoin the bar, which triggered the thought that he should rebadge himself from SC to QC.

He applied online and on August 16, 2022, the executive council stamped his letters patent.

He lasted 23 days as a QC and is among the final few of that breed to be appointed anywhere on the planet. 

He said he was “really quite surprised” to hear of the Queen’s death. At approximately 3.30 am AEST Dean became a KC, “without the issue of new letters patent to ensure continuity”.  

He reflected on the fact that in NSW, Tasmania and WA, “it is not possible to be appointed a QC” and so the change to KC was not national. 

“This reinforced, for me, the conclusion that the title is one of branding and branding that I was happy to apply to myself. Yet there remains a lingering uncertainty and discomfort in my mind.” 

The retired judge’s musing got weirder. It seems SCs are not feeling the same way as KCs when it comes to reconciling the old world order: 

“As I write this, looking out over the farm, a fox and a wedge tailed eagle are fighting over the remains of a dead kangaroo in the paddock above the creek. The fox prevails even after another eagle arrives to assist. 

The uncertainty I feel resides in my own mortality and the experience of change. For reasons that I cannot fully articulate the title KC connects me to the time of my father, the war and the dispossession of Aboriginal lands. While the death of the Queen will change the nation it has also taken us back to the time of a King. A time distant in our make up. A time few of us know but do not want to return to. 

The SCs may not feel this way today and some friends are not impressed that I made the change to QC, but I am content to experience this knot in my life, and will remember well how that fox prevailed as the rain swept across the paddocks on Dja Dja Wurrung country. And that change will come.” 

Que? 

It’s to be held online and at the QEII Cauldron in Brisbane, on October 20 – six days before HH retires from the High Court. 

To watch the address online requires the provision of details, including whether you are male, female or non-binary.

If this information is not provided the website won’t allow you to register. 

Another lawyer reports applying for a tribunal gig in Victoria, where’s he asked to complete a “diversity survey” – requiring information whether he’s of Aboriginal heritage, a Torres Strait islander, trans-gender or non-binary.

For which whirlpool of diversity had he applied? The Building Appeals Board. 

Former Liberal candidate for Warringah, Katherine Deves, hero to Brother Scott, Winston Howard and the Mad Monk, must have designed these probing questions. 

Constitutional law authority and the media’s go-to person for a quote, Prof Anne Twomey, has sprung into action hot on the heels of the death of Our Sovereign Lady.

Prof Twomey, from the University of Sydney Law School, has turned herself into a YouTube influencer with a channel called The Constitutional Clarion. 

There are five videos, so far (Sept 15). The first clip deals with the legal and constitutional consequences for Australia on the death of the Queen. 

Other topics include The Voice, the process of referendums, the difference between cabinet and the executive council and, most recently, “The Accession Council of King Charles – What did it all mean?” 

To date the channel has attracted 105 subscribers – constitutional enthusiasts who enjoy the arcanery of royal protocol, process and procedure and how it applies in colonial outposts like Orstraya. 

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