Circuit Court judge over the line in family law property case … Too many questions from the bench, expressions of disbelief, sarcasm, procedural unfairness … Ginger Snatch reports
A delightfully fresh smack-down comes to hand from the full Family Court in a case called Huda with Judge Salvatore Vasta of the FCC getting the smack.
Sal indulged in too much judicial intervention in a family law property dispute.
The husband, who was in financial difficulties because of a debt owing to him, rearranged with a friend, Mr Laham, to borrow $350,000 which with interest at the time of the trial had ballooned to $580,000.
The husband claimed that his wife should be equally liable for the loan, which had the effect of reducing the net property available for distribution.
Mrs Huda said that no such loans existed and that a document was concocted for the purpose of the family law proceedings of alleging a debt.
After interrogating Mr Laham as though he was opposing counsel “entering the fray” the judge decided:
“I am satisfied that the evidence of both the husband and [Mr Laham] on the issue of these loans was a contrivance. I am satisfied that both men attempted to perpetrate a fraud upon this court.”
The Full Family of Stephen Thackray, Peter Murphy and Michael Kent threw out the judge’s finding with reasons that kicked off on a high note:
So, too, proceedings in the Family Court must be conducted ‘without undue formality’. However, both modern judicial method and statutory informality have limits bounded by procedural fairness. The latter remains paramount because ‘having an impartial judge [seeing] fair play in the conduct of the case’ is a ‘basic right underlying the adversarial system of trial’.”
Extracts of Sal’s “cross-examinations” from the bench made for disturbing reading. There was sarcasm; the impugning of a witness’s credit which led to a “grave factual finding”; procedural unfairness; and asking multiple questions that would have been disallowed if counsel had asked them.
The appeal judges accepted that Vasta gave the appearance of being part of a “tag-team” for the wife’s counsel. There were pages and pages of transcript where the judge ran the questions.
The full court said that this remark had “no purpose other than to indicate that the judge is throwing doubt onto the evidence given”.
The judge’s interventions resulted in the witness making concessions that might otherwise not have occurred had Vasta remained more aloof from the fray.
The result was that the judge could not be seen to bring an impartial mind to the significant credit issue – the honesty of the loan and the claimed indebtedness.
Back it goes. Start again with someone other than Vasta.
Soapy Brandis “QC” arranged in 2014 for Sal’s elevation from Queensland prosecutor to federal judge.
As Justinian reported at the time, Sal was his father’s associate last century, before Angelo was removed from office as a Qld. Supreme Court judge.
Sal is a lovely fellow and an enthusiastic employee of the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions.
However, he is unlikely to know his way to the Federal Circuit Court, let alone have a working knowledge of family law, immigration, bankruptcy and the other kinds of wheat ground at that mill.
Sal’s brother is Ross Vasta MP (LNP).
There is a distant echo from the Bjelke era. Journalist and law historian Evan Whitton recalls Angelo’s appointment to the Supremes in February 1984.
This from his seminal work, The Hillbilly Dictator:
“The National Party Cabinet approved the appointment of [crooked police commissioner “Sir” Terry] Lewis’s friend, Angelo Vasta, as a Justice of the Supreme Court … Vasta was 42; on seniority, he would have a good chance of one day being knighted as Sir Angelo Vasta, Chief Justice. There was opposition to the appointment from the president of the Bar Association, Bill Pincus QC, and from the government’s legal adviser, Ian Callinan QC. Pincus argued that Crown Prosecutors tended to lack experience in civil work.”