Crocodile obsessed Top End tabloid skewers a judicial reptile … Judge Greg Borchers and bullying from the bench … Scoops aplenty as the tribe tries to close ranks … From Buffalo Bruce
Top End lawyers have been bracing for daily press reports of allegations about the bullying behaviour of “judge” Greg Borchers.
In the NT magistrates are called “judges”, which doesn’t always sit comfortably with the Supreme Court judges, specially when they have to bear the public odium associated with poor behaviour by Local Court beaks.
NT News court reporter Craig Dunlop has done everyone a great service in getting to grips with the Borchers story. Lawyers have been grumbling for ages about this judicial officer’s unpleasant behaviour and now more of it is out in the open and causing quite a bit of squirming and duck-shoving.
In June last year Borchers accused a 14-year Aboriginal boy who he remanded on charges of property damage of “taking advantage” of the situation where his mother had been killed and his father held in custody on suspicion of her murder.
He also made a heavy handed assault on defence counsel asking him repeatedly who is going to pay for the property damage caused by the young offender.
Borchers has been the subject of an “internal investigation” conducted by Chief Judge Dr John Lowndes who substantially upheld 17 complaints lodged by the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service concerning the manner in which the judge treated defendants’ lawyers.
This included the resignation of a young female lawyer from CAALAS who alleged she had been bullied by Borchers in his courtroom.
A later series of four complaints were made in July 2017 and upheld in December, largely dealing with the judge’s treatment of young defendants.
It seems Borchers is something of a recidivist, having agreed to moderate his conduct only then months later to lapse back to his old form.
The NT News reported the finding that Borchers behaviour repeatedly “fell below the standard of conduct expected of a judicial officer and was inappropriate”.
Lowndes’ report said that the judge “accepts that he has on the occasions identified in the transcripts acted improperly and inappropriately” … He regrets this, and it was not his intention to cause distress.
Attorney General Natasha Fyles rejected a request from Eileen Van Iersel, then the chief executive of the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service, to examine whether Borchers appointment could be terminated on grounds of incapacity.
Ms Van Iersel wrote:
“It is considered an unfortunate ‘rite of passage’ of practising criminal law in the centre that you undergo a ‘Borching’, meaning you appear in a matter before Judge Borchers and he unfairly and forcefully criticises you.”
“In court, Judge Borchers is often bullying, aggressive, hostile, sarcastic and disrespectful …
I have on several occasions been required to console counsel who have been reduced to tears by Judge Borchers’ abusive conduct towards them. I have witnessed what appears to be the systematic belittling by Judge Borchers of generally young and relatively inexperienced CAALAS lawyers over a period of years, and believe that this has been a substantial cause of the high level of turnover of youth justice lawyers at CAALAS.”
However, in another scoop Craig Dunlop reported that Goldflam asked Dr Lowndes to keep concerns about Borchers away from the royal commission into children in detention. Goldflam gave evidence to the commission but his view was that that the appropriate way to address the complaints about the magistrate was “within the court”.
He said in a letter that he hoped Lowndes would deal with the matter discretely and later told a lawyers’ conference that he was pleased the chief just had kept it away from the “glare of publicity”. His concern was that if the complaints emerged openly, it would undermine the public’s faith in the administration of justice.
It has also been revealed that Goldflam is Borchers’ next-door neighbour in Alice Springs.
Borchers in open court has expressed his dim view of the work of the royal commission:
“They are prepared to … spent $50 million on a royal commission which will continue on until possibly it snows at Christmas …”
Dunlop also reported that Dr Lowndes found in this instance that the magistrate had indulged in a “gratuitous and unnecessary” monologue questioning the work of the commission … It was “not becoming of a judicial officer who is expected to maintain a sense of composure and patience”.
A story in the NT News on January 26 revealed that Borchers presided over an “insensitive and unnecessary mini-appraisal of a 14-year-old rape victim’s parenting abilities.
This was one of the issues investigated by Lowndes but not made public until Craig Dunlop got his paws on it.
Lowndes found that the comments were inappropriate and unjudicial and had the effect of “heaping shame on the child”.
Borchers’ response to the investigations was that the unrelenting process of “churning through matters involving violence” had taken a toll on him.
“There are no days off, there is no counselling …”
Nothing to look at here, just move along. Mr Aust was quoted as saying that there was no finding that Borchers’ behaviour amounted to judicial misconduct or judicial bullying.
In fact, “demonising individuals” is not a “productive solution”. What is more important is the “collegiality of the profession … CLANT considers the matter now finalised,” Aust said.
Unfortunately it is not. The NT News has more in the locker and members of the profession have been assisting the paper’s ace reporter with numerous insights. Certainly, someone close to the action is leaking secret reports and letters.
In the light of the Peter Maley affair, the NT magistrate who handed out out-to-vote cards for the Country Liberal Party and sat on the board of its fundraising arm, you might imagine that any aberrant form of judicial cowboyism is possible, what with the heat and being so far north.
The AIJA might have to print more copies of the latest edition of its tome Guide to Judicial Conduct and have it trucked to the furtherest courthouses of the wide brown land. However, as we’ve heard before from politicians in the territory, “it’s only a guide”.
Borchers has been on holidays while the NT News has been running these stories and not available for comment.
NT News stories on Borchers
Conduct of judge kept out of royal commission hearing