Queensland chief justice Tim Carmody says he’ll resign if the attorney general meets his conditions … The “experiment” that failed” … AG standing firm, while Carmody plays the violin … When will we hear the last tune?  

He’ll go, but only on “just terms” and if there is “a solution for the leadership of the courts”, which is Timbo’s longhand for the creation of a Queensland judicial commission. 

The “solution” for the leadership of the courts is staring him in the face. It’s his departure from the job of CJ, post-haste. 

“Just terms” means he wants a decent farewell payout, but because he is three years shy of being eligible for his judicial pension this will be a problem. 

Attorney General Yvette D’Ath has said she cannot change the arrangements for his pension – to do so could amount to an “inducement” to get rid of him.  

The CJ talked vaguely about the need “to build a shared commitment to and a clear framework for meaningful reform”. 

He seems to be suggesting that a judicial commission would be the way to discipline judges who fell out of line with him, or any future CJ. 

The AG said earlier this month she was working on a judicial appointments protocol – not mentioned by Carmody as part of his reform agenda.  

Without naming anyone he thought others should also resign. Possible he had in mind the head of the trial division, Justice John Byrne. 

The “low point” event he gave as precipitating his decision to run-up the white flag was the emergence of the story that Byrne secretly taped his “scum” rant, in which the CJ sought to change the appointment to the Court of Disputed Returns at a politically charged post-election moment.  

However, news about the tape only emerged on May 18, well after he told the attorney general that he was prepared to leave. 

It is also possible that the other precipitous event, President McMurdo’s refusal to sit with him, which was made known on April 23, also occurred after his meeting with the AG. 

So his stated reason behind his decision to leave looks like an after-the-event justification. 

This is consistent with his contradictory announcements that he would go if he was damaging the “brand”, and later he wouldn’t go because he needed to finish the job. 

After years forlornly bashing away at Julia Gillard, Hedless Thomas of The Australian, finally cracked a scoop with his interview of Carmody, complete with fetching family snaps. 

Carmody told Hedless his mission had been to reform the court, to bring it into the 21st century, to make it “the people’s court”. 

He wanted to show Queenslanders how the court worked, “why people won and why people lost cases”. 

He was thwarted in this exciting reform program because he didn’t get the support of the other judges. 

One can’t help feeling sorry for Bluto. He was appointed by the frightful Newman government, with the support of a wretchedly idiotic attorney general, at a time he’d been making patriotic noises in support of the LNP’s Lawn Order agenda. 

See lots about the early background here 

As departing Justices Muir and Wilson pointed out, he didn’t have the skills required to produce well-reasoned and timely judgments. It started badly and didn’t get any better. 

He explained to Hedless that he would have got on with his judgments faster, if he had been “left alone to do that”. 

Before he goes he’ll have to put his head down and finish a batch of judgments. It could mean his departure is still months away. 

In the meantime, a strange stand-off persists. “Just terms” looks hugely problematic and unlikely, and at the same time the government can’t institute a batch of court reforms just to get Carmody to shuffle-off. 

Quite properly the attorney general said today (May 25): 

“It is the case, that in late April, the chief justice advised me of his intentions, but it is the decision of the chief justice to then make that decision as to his resignation and when that would occur. 

That is a decision that rests solely with the chief justice, it is not the case that advising myself as attorney general, the decision then sits with the attorney general as to when that should occur.” 

Only on Saturday, The Australian’s unfortunate legal affairs scribbler, Christopher Merritt, was insisting that … 

“If the campaign against the Queensland chief justice succeeds and he is forced from the bench, it would undermine one of the core principles of the state’s constitutional arrangements.” 

According to Merritt, the judges who criticised Carmody “crossed the line” and it is the government’s right to, “select those who are considered appropriate candidates for the bench”. 

The trouble is that the only people who thought Carmody was appropriate were dills like Newman and the conveyancer general, Jiving Jarrod Bleijie. 

Let’s leave the last word to Carmody, the timing of whose departure is unfathomable: 

“The best lawyers don’t necessarily make the best judges, and the best judges are not necessarily the best chief justices.”