Silken beauties on the ticket for Collaery and Witness K “national security” trial … Major law and justice commitment missing from NSW election campaign … Judges in South Australia withdraw from SC appointments as QC proposal flounders … Leading players will be absent from the Geoffrey Rush judgment … Theodora reports  

Collaery, a former ACT attorney general, and Witness K, a former senior ASIS operative, are in the government’s frame over leaks concerning Australia’s bugging of the Timor Leste ministerial offices at the time of the negotiations for the seabed boundary and access to the Greater Sunrise natural gas deposits. 

Collaery had been acting for Witness K in a dispute he was having with the security agency. Subsequently, various media organisations got to hear how in breach of international law ASIS had bugs in place to gain an upper hand in the oil and gas negotiations with the fledgling nation. 

There have been various preliminary rounds but it’s back on before Magistrate Lorraine Walker in Canberra on August 6, 7 and 8 to decide which parts, if any, of the Commonwealth’s evidence can be tried in public. 

The government wants to keep the whole show as tight as a drum and it’s unlikely to be tried by a jury. As it is, the procedural aspects will be heard after the federal election and since both Liberal and Labor have dirty hands in this matter it is likely that there’ll be no enthusiasm to bring it to trial with expedition. 

As and when it does go ahead, there’s an expectation that former ASIS director David Irvine and his then boss Alexander Downer might be subpoenaed to give evidence. Whether the public will be allowed in to enjoy the fun seems improbable. 

The evidence is the subject of various notices from AG Porter under the National Security Information (Civil and Criminal Proceedings) Act.  

As a result, publication of parts of the prosecution’s brief of evidence are restricted and can only be read by lawyers acting in the case and by the accused in the presence of his lawyers. 

The main parts of the Commonwealth’s brief has to be kept in a locked safe in a security approved room, under 24 hours guard, etc, etc. 

None of Collaery’s lawyers have given written undertakings required by the spooks. 

Appearing for Witness K is Yarraside barrister Haydn Carmichael, instructed by Bronwyn Lincoln from Corrs. 

Plenty of friends of Timor Leste will be in attendance. 

The condition of the male urinal in the Downing Centre, probably the busiest court in Australia, was completely ignored as a law and justice issue in the NSW state election. 

It has been out of action for more than a year and lawyers have been planning to form a special interest pressure group to ask election candidates to clarify their position on the state of the Downing Centre’s facilities. 

The undue pressure on bladders has been intolerable and even some males have been sprung in the female bathrooms relieving themselves. 

It is not as though the NSW bar ‘n’ grill made any effort to press for resolution of this crisis in its law & justice manifesto released specially for the election campaign.  

If the Liberals can tear down a perfectly good football stadium and spend over $700 million on a new one, how come they can’t splash a few shekels on a new trough? 

South Australian Supreme Court judges have ratcheted-up the dispute with the government over the appointment of queens counsel. 

The SA cabinet decided last month to introduce the Yarraside model, whereby the court appoints SCs which can then be converted, with letters patent from the government, into QCs. 

It’s understood that already there is a queue of senior counsel outside the attorney general’s office begging to cash in their SCs. 

However, chief justice Chris Kourakis has now indicated that the court will not appoint any further SCs. 

Vickie Chapman, the state’s reactionary attorney general, says the bar and the law society “are working on alternative models for future SC appointments”. 

It means these tickets of eminence will not be endorsed by the court, and that guild-anointed SCs will be transformed into QCs by political endorsement. 

Kourakis believes that prerogative appointments by the government are no longer compatible with “contemporary constitutional independence of the courts”.

It’s a fiction to suggest that a QC is the “Queen’s counsel”. Betty Battenberg is unlikely to call on anyone from the Adelaide bar for representation or advice and, since 1920, QCs have not had to get permission to appear against the crown.  

Without judicial endorsement the silken plumage turns tawdry. The SA bar says it is working on a new SC protocol with the Law Society. 

It is also reported by the Adelaide news website InDaily, that the state government is proposing an “unprecedented” cut to the courts’ funding in the forthcoming budget. 

Set your alarms for 2pm, Thursday, April 11, when Justice Michael Wigney in the Federal Court will deliver his judgment in the Geoffrey Rush v Daily Smellograph defamation case. 

The newspaper ran a truth defence relying on a perfectly sound witness, the actress Eryn Jean Norvill. Her evidence was that in an STC production of King Lear she was subjected to Rush’s “inappropriate behaviour”, including lewd gestures, unwanted physical contact, inappropriate comments, bulging of eyes and smacking of lips, provocative text messages, touching her breast and her back. 

Rush’s lawyers contended she was lying, although why she would go to the trouble and immense personal trauma of doing so in court, was never explained. There was confusion about which breast was touched by Rush and indeed Wigney thought Rush would have to be a “contortionist” to touch her. 

The judge seemed star-struck with so many celebrities in his court and quite readily gave Rush the benefit of the doubt. Wigney thought it “bizarre” to claim that Rush would do anything for his sexual gratification that might undermine the emotional intensity of his performance. 

He also slapped a suppression order on the identity of another witness, who he excluded from giving evidence in the truth case. 

There’s an added fantastical element to Wigney’s endeavour. After the trial concluded Australian actress based in New York, Yael Stone, told The New York Times and the ABC in Australia that she also was subjected to what Rush describes as his “spirited enthusiasm” – dancing naked in front of her “with his penis out”, spying on her in the shower, and sending escalating sexually provocative texts. 

All of which suggests that there is the real world, and then there’s Wigney’s judgment.