No more cases for the CJ after the end of this year … Appointing a successor … Proroguing parliament for an unusual reason … Government seeking to takeover senate agenda … Everything perfectly normal
Robert French has effectively brought forward his retirement as High Court chief justice by a few months.
He is due to depart the court when he turns 70 on March 19 next year. However, he has told AG Bookshelves Brandis “QC” that he will effectively retire from judicial functions from the end of this year.
He won’t take part in any of the new term’s cases in 2017 and the intervening time up to March 19 will be given over to farewells, tributes, feasts and gala events.
If Labor wins this year’s election it will have the golden opportunity to replace the chief justice who was appointed by Labor in Kevin Rudd’s time as PM.
Otherwise, Bookshelves will be the one casting around for an appointment, assuming of course he is still attorney general, or has not cast himself for the job.
He left that possibility open in recent answers to questions on notice.
Bookshelves confirmed that all appointments to the High Court by the Rudd and Gillard governments “were supported by the then Opposition”.
He gave no guarantee that he would consult with the shadow AG on court appointments. ”I may consult the shadow AG where I consider it helpful to do so.”
“It is desirable that judicial appointments have the support of both sides of politics.
I was consulted by Ms Roxon when she was attorney general in relation to High Court appointments.
I was not consulted by Mr McClelland or Mr Dreyfus on High Court appointments.”
What to make of the strange twists and turns concocted by the PM and Bookshelves to get Cossy Cosgrove to prorogue parliament on Friday, April 15 at 5pm and then summon it to sit again from Monday, 9.30am on April 18.
It’s a recess of one weekend, which gets the notice paper “purged”.
There’s been little to no explanation for this in the daily blatts. Bookshelves claims that the Constitution’s proroguing power (section 5) has been used 28 times since federation, and on 17 other occasions when parliament has been prorogued prior to an election.
His departmental people looked-up all the authorities for Cosgrove and made out that proroguing and summoning parliament on the advise of his ministers was common practice and not to lose any sleep over it.
However, the aim of the strategy announced on Monday (March 21) is for the government in the lower house to take control of the upper house’s timetable – and that is a rare thing.
As a parting gesture just before parliament rose until the budget session in May, the senate decided that it would not consider the Australian Building and Construction Commission Bill until May 12 – not convenient for a government in a hurry to have a double dissolution election.
The government was also concerned that the senate might delay the supply Bills past May 11, the last day for the calling of a double dissolution.
Prorogation is a practical devise to escape the consequence of not controlling the senate, but to insist that it is commonly used for that purpose is plain misleading.
Bookshelves kept citing Joseph Cook’s advice to Lord Denman, in 1913 if you please, to recall the senate two months early so it could get on with some work. It’s not a helpful analogy to draw with the two-step dance announced on Monday.
Shadow AG Mark Dreyfus QC issued a statement pointing out that Brandis was over-inflating the idea that the use of section 5 for this purpose was perfectly normal.
Brandis “QC” couldn’t see the point and put out another statement repeating his over-larded generalisation.