WHO can lead the Qld Supremes out of its pain, now that Timbo Carmody has shuffled-off, stage right? Tim Carmody passes into the sunset … Not even the hacks at The Bowen Hills Bugle could save him … The folly of an overtly political judicial appointment … Who’s next for CJ?
WHO can lead the Qld Supremes out of its pain, now that Timbo Carmody has shuffled-off, stage right?
A sounding suggests there is no shortage of credible or, at least, plausible contenders.
Can’t Do Campbell Newman had the unerring knack to pick the standout person who had neither credibility nor plausibility.
Apart from the unresolved leadership of the Crime and Corruption Commission, Carmody’s departure as chief justice is just about the last hurrah of the Newmanites.
It was clear ever since Alan Wilson’s incendiary farewell that Carmody would be going.
The hacks at the Murdoch press were the CJ’s principal boosters – in the face of evidence that he was not up to it. In the process, a dreadful campaign of denigration was waged against the president of the court of appeal and Carmody foe, Margaret McMurdo.
The fact that The Courier-Mail, for all its thuggery, and The Australian, for all its crassness, couldn’t save their hero, speaks volumes about the declining power of the press, and the Murdoch papers in particular.
In The Australian, legal affairs scribbler and former Newcastle tap-dancer, Christopher Merritt, solemnly declared 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.”
With allies like these, poor old Timbo was doomed.
Prof. Andrew Lynch from UNSW has published an interesting treatise on Merritt and the merit principle in judicial selection.
In March Carmody said he’d be off if he thought he was hurting the “brand”, only to be begged to stay by The Courier-Mail.
In May, he told The Australian’s reporter Hedless Thomas that he would retire on “just terms” and if the government committed “to a clear framework for meaningful reform” of the court and the appointment process.
Shortly after the Bowen Hill Bugle reported that his “supporters plan a public campaign to back him in the job”.
Apparently, there was a “steady stream of lawyers and the public wanting him to shelve resignation plans“.
The one supporter the Bugle got to go on the record was former District Court judge Brian Boulton, who thought Carmody was the right man to be chief justice, because he’s “no silver tail”.
Then in May, the Cowan appeals blew-up, with Margaret McMurdo saying she would not sit with the chief. It also became apparent he was struggling to finish writing his judgment.
Anyway, who could be picked for chief justice? Wise owls say that Phil McMurdo is the standout, intellectual leader. However, AG Yvette D’Ath is unlikely to do a Brandis and elevate family members.
Red Ros Atkinson is the senior judge, but the feedback we get is she’s “too rigid” in her thinking – whatever that means.
Jim Douglas would be a poetic choice and, naturally, they could go for Lord Hugh Fraser.
The AG has said that the appointment will come from within the court, so that puts to rest the serried ranks of pretenders at the bar carrying batons in their knapsacks.
The important question that the AG should ask is who can heal and restore the court’s standing?
Maybe as a two finger salute to the Newman government, consideration should be given to appointing as CJ either one of the two men that Bluto Carmody tried to shaft – John Byrne or David Boddice.
In the entire sweep of judicial appointments plenty of inadequate human beings have been elevated to CJ, although most of them could do the work. It’s when you get someone who can’t do the work and trashes the collegiality of the court, that real problems emerge.
Carmody is still on the supreme court and in rank is now the third most junior of the Brisbane judges.
He has demonstrated he’s not up to writing credible or plausible judgments, so he’ll sit there keeping his pension warm for the next three years while serving as a judicial member of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal – hoping that Justice David Thomas will move over as president.
The government has said it will not be appointing an extra Supreme Court judge, so Carmody is occupying the space of someone who might be productive.
As a judicial member of QCAT he is serving on a tribunal lower in the food chain than the magistrates court. The tribunal is part of the justice administration division within the department of Justice and AG.
Maybe it’s just the ticket for someone who admits he’s “not the smartest in the room”.
Last month, barrister Alex McKean sought an internal review of an earlier JAG decision to refuse access to the chief justice’s documents concerning the proposal to change the roster for the selection of the judge to sit as the court of disputed returns and the attempt to remove the senior judge administrator from his post.
There were all sorts of contorted arguments to justify refusal of access under the Right to Information Act, but Carmody sent the internal reviewer a letter on June 30, objecting to the disclosure of these documents.
He announced his resignation the next day.
Attorney General D’Ath said that “in the spirit of moving forward”, the government would offer the services of a mediator with “eminent legal experience and seniority to assist the judges of the Supreme Court in identifying and developing appropriate work practices and standards within the court”.