The Northern Territory provides a broken justice system for Indigenous children … Under-funded, under-skilled and a failure of political will … Hannah Wootton looks at evidence given to the NT royal commission on youth detention 

Claim of fabricated documents in costs assessment … Debts that are not true debts … Cost determination affected by jurisdictional error … Barrister’s petition dismissed 

Canberra’s judgments of perfection … Prize giving … God help us … Blood oath … Witnessing stat decs 101 

Judges think the advocates immunity is past its use-by date … High Court formulation out of step with reality and international trends  

A fair share of the court’s time is too much time … Tax appeal closed down because of dilatory barrister … There’s no time like tomorrow 

Litigation … Claims of a “stratagem” … Psychiatrist gives hundreds of expert reports to litigants, but cannot be located for cross-examination … Doctor is subpoenaed but fails the show in person … The syrup in every pudding … Dizzo judge asks the Supreme Court to examine the possibility of contempt … Sohini Mehta reports on a strange case  COMMENT: This SHAM has been enacted for decades in relation to Victims Compensation. Under this scheme alleged victims provide a personal statement and in order to acquire damages, a statement from a health provider, such as a psychiatrist or psychologist. The health provider usually receives instruction from a lawyer and interviews the client for about an hour. Their function is to listen to the alleged story of violence and link that story to causative factors of psychological symptoms. Thus a client such as Jack the Ripper or Jeffrey Dahmer could front up, claim they were sexually assaulted as a child by the local priest, their neighbor or indeed their own father, and have that claim accepted by a health professional, who did not know them from a bar of soap and would happily link their story of abuse to their later serial killings. As nominated defendants are not notified of proceedings which are conducted solely as paper exercises, neither the health professional nor the alleged victim is cross-examined. Given the current moral panic, any such allegations are accepted without question or contradiction and public money handed out.

Around 2001, John Marsden former President of the NSW Law Society, won his defamation case against Channel 7 in the NSW Supreme Court. Despite the trial Judge, David Levine finding that the alleged victims were "discredible" and "unreliable", a District Court Judge, gave $150,000 in public money to one of these "discredible" and "unreliable" witnesses. The District Court Judge based his judgment on a preference to one of two psychologists' reports, neither of whom were required for cross-examination. Both cases were decided on the civil standard.

The NSW Government was made fully aware of the contradiction at the time and has done nothing to reform the law. In the words of a former Queensland Premier – Natural justice – "don't you worry about that".

Generous terms offered to new federal courts personal manager … Stephen Gageler brings to life the turmoil at the High Court 112 years ago … Bar presidents go, bar presidents come 

The big night of bench and bar schmoozing interrupted by a call for gender equality … “WTF” … Many codgers not on the page … Women briefs ecstatic … Tweets galore … Others roaming the alleyways ask, “where are the characters?”