Sandy Street downs the Commonwealth … Health report … Hong Kong knees-up … Eastman disaster ends in damages … Painstaking magisterial appointment … Florid epistle from Rod the God … Bar election policies … AG butts into the Palace Letters stand-off … Winston to schmooze ancient briefs … QC grief in Adelaide … Theodora reports 

Judgment is yet to appear, but the orders can be found on the Comcourts website. The victory belongs to “Short” Oliver Jones of Four Selborne, as opposed to “Tall” Oliver Jones of 11 Wentworth. 

The mentoring arranged by Willy Alstergren could be paying off. 

Former CEO of the NSW bar ‘n’ grill, Philip Selth, 70, has been undergoing chemo for pancreatic cancer. 

It’s chemo for a couple of months and then, maybe, surgery. Theodora wishes him a speedy recovery. 

Dodging the truncheons, rubber bullets and tear gas to find your way to the JW Marriott Hotel will be half the fun. All that the conference organisers hope is that the Red Army hasn’t invaded by November 6 when lion dancing kicks off the show in the Marriott ballroom. 

The conference is called “Harmonisation through Synergy” and it looks spellbinding, with speeches from the HK chief justice, the secretary for justice in the war torn administration, a plenary session on “a vision for the future” moderated by T.F. Bathurst CJ, then off to the Happy Valley Racecourse for an update from a mystery speaker on the global legal landscape and the LAWASIA Cup. 

The glory days of CIA funding for LawAsia jamborees are nothing more than a blur, but the horse-race might rekindle memories of the time when LAWASIA’s founder Jolly John Kerr could barely stand upright at Flemington. 

The ACT Supremes has set a new record for handing down a judgment. The compensation case brought by David Harold Eastman was heard by Justice Michael Elkaim from October 1 to October 4, 2019. 

Judgment was delivered 10 days later, on October 14. If Justice Roughshagger or Justice Penfold were still around, poor old Eastman might be pushing up daisies before he knew the result.

Elkaim ordered the ACT government pay the plaintiff $7,020,000, plus costs. After 19 years in pokey due to flawed forensic evidence, an over-zealous DPP,   a miscarriage of justice, wrongful conviction and unlawful detention, the government got off lightly. 

The Human Rights Act, ACT, came to the assistance of the wrongfully convicted man. 

The prosecutor at the original Eastman trial was Michael (Fatty) Adams, later HH Justice Adams, and later still the Hon Chief Commissioner Adams of the NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission. 

In May 2015, Fairfax settled a defamation action brought by Fatty following allegations by Jack Waterford in The Canberra Times that the prosecutor “had intentionally breached his duties … by failing to disclose certain material to Mr Eastman”.  

The newspaper said that “no such meaning was intended” but grovelled if anyone might have understood it that way. 

Waterford has published a new piece giving the lengthy history of the case, detailing poor performances by unnamed persons and calling for “a searching review”. 

On May 15 last year the AG made the announcement about Maher’s appointment. She is an experienced lawyer, having served on the law society’s children’s legal issues committee, run the Children’s Legal Service, and appeared numerous times before the Children’s Court, and the Drug, Local, District and Supreme Courts.

Maher also worked as a senior criminal lawyer at the DPP, ICAC and Legal Aid. 

She was sworn in as a magistrate on June 13, but it soon became apparent that Henson appoints people to the Children’s Court, not Speakman. 

The attorney general must have assumed she was sitting as a Children’s Court magistrate from June 2018, but the relevant statutory piece of paper had not been signed by Henson, so Maher did not appear on the list of the court’s officers. 

Questions were asked at parliamentary estimates and on notice by Labor members Adam Searle and Paul Lynch. The AG said was unaware that the chief magistrate had not made the appointment. 

In September last year eventually her name appeared on the list of children’s court officers, but as “Magistrate Debra Maher”, whereas the other 15 members of the court were each described as a “Children’s Magistrate”. 

Further questions were asked and again the AG said he would have to check what was going on. Later he gave a written reply saying she was undertaking a range of work as a Local Court madge. 

It was not until a further session of estimates last month when it emerged that Maher became a full magistrate of the Children’s Court in November 2018, five months after the attorney general wanted her in the job. 

And there were the clunking great sentences that have long been the trademark of Roderick’s prose. 

“In write in order to convey to the current membership of the Law Society, the contribution that the Late Trevor Nyman to the affairs [sic] of the Law Society and wider legal profession.” 

He went on to dismiss the “ill-informed assumption” that if you acted for criminals “then in all likelihood you were part of the criminal world”. 

“I was one of those Presidents who had to deal with the ill-informed critics that having made an ill-informed judgement as to his honour, then wanted me to remove him from serving Law Society committees and lecturing at The College of Law …” 

Rod wanted Trev to be remembered as a “fine and wonderful husband, lawyer and contributor to the legal profession … and not by innuendo and allegations that remain totally without any external evidence of truth”. 

Unfortunately, there are a few people and a few shreds of external evidence that linger – for it was Trev who spent much time on the Law Society criminal law committee actively undermining the role of the then Public Solicitor and the Australian Legal Aid Office. 

He came up with a voucher proposal, which would have allowed solicitors to double dip their fees with whatever was the nominated value of the voucher plus the amount that Legal Aid could stump-up. 

He campaigned to amend the Legal Aid Commission Act so that private solicitors could also receive money from defendants on top of what legal aid paid. 

In lockstep with members of the bar he also opposed the work of the state’s in-house barristers, the Public Defenders. 

The 1970s and 1980s were a fraught time for salaried solicitors and barristers, who were accused of snatching truffles out of the mouths of well-padded private solicitors like Trev. 

Influential elements of the bar and law society, egged on by Nyman, actively opposed public solicitors and salaried defence barristers and the establishment of legal aid offices in suburban and regional centres. 

Not many people can remember seeing Rod’s friendly dial in the criminal courts, but that hasn’t prevented him being on hand to clear up “ill-informed critics and their ill-informed judgements”. 

There doesn’t seem to be an abundance of fun with this year’s NSW bar council elections. No tickets wanting QCs to be restored or to sack the bar CEO or president for whatever reason comes to hand. 

The ballot is underway now with the AGM scheduled for November 7. Twenty-eight SC have nominated along with 46 others. 

Michele Fraser from 2 Selborne has circulated a manifesto, with some attention grabbing policies. She says 25 percent of barristers do not have a full-time presence in chambers because they are door tenants, work from home or are members of “virtual chambers”. 

“Their numbers are growing and I would encourage the bar association to look to promoting their interests with the provision of conference rooms, wifi-ed work stations and other member friendly services.” 

She also wants the bar common room  to be reclaimed with “comfy chairs, a mini gym etc. – whatever it takes to bring it back to life”. 

Thirdly, and importantly, she thinks the bar should give up its regulatory functions. “With six staff, including four lawyers, the professional conduct department is the bar association’s biggest department … 

“Let’s leave regulation to the regulators and get on with the job of promoting the profession and looking after the interests of members.” 

Vote One, Michele. 

Under s.78A of the Judiciary Act, the AG has given notice that the case raises constitutional issues and he wants to be in the thick of it. 

Presumably, he is of the view that Jolly John Kerr’s billet-doux to her Maj, both before and after the dismissal of the Whitlam government, are not the property of the government and should not be produced. 

Special leave was granted in August and submissions have been filed by the appellant.  

Aged barristers are in for a treat. The latest batch of entrants to NSW’s experienced barristers programmer are off next month to the Purple Onion Club in Sydney where they’ll be subjected to a speech by Little Winston Howard OM AC. 

The lucky briefs are Tony Bellanto QC (1967), John Shaw (1968) and Dennis Wheelahan QC (who doesn’t appear to be listed on the bar’s website). 

President Game says those who reach the 50-year milestone can get on with mentoring, helping out at universities and organising chambers’ cocktail soirées.  

Why they have to be subjected to the beastly Winston is an unnecessary punishment. 

From Florence on the Torrens we hear traffic that the Supremes are so annoyed by the Tory government’s reintroduction of Queen’s Counsel that they have contemplated not badging counsel “QC” in judgments reported online. 

Rather, they would prefer to give them the SC post-nominal, which is the gong that the judges themselves conferred. 

Why don’t they show some judicial cajones and do it?