Slow progress from WA Supremo … Not as speedy as the judge would have liked … Heavy work … Claim of oppression … Rayney defamation decision still on ice … Further complications … The years roll by … Latest from Theodora 

Once again Justice Jenni Hill is in dispatches, having taken over two-and-a-half years  to deliver a judgment concerning a directors’ kerfuffle in a family-run IPA business. 

HH explained: 

“The hearing of this matter took place in February 2020. It is not been possible to complete the reasons for my decision as quickly as I would have liked.” 

It’s a heartening reminder that judges are able to perform essential tasks when they “would have liked”. 

Anyway, Justice Hill explains that everything is under control because she has “a clear impression of the evidence”; she made contemporaneous notes; she reviewed the transcript; and she has listened to recordings of the witnesses’ evidence and, where necessary, “re-listened”. 

In addition, she says she did not draw her conclusions based on the demeanour of the witnesses. 

The judgment was delivered on July 1, 2022 but only made its way to Austlii on October 5. She adjourned in July without final orders so the parties could consider her reasons and make final submissions. 

Most of the orders were agreed between the parties and three months later the judgment emerged into daylight.  

Meanwhile, there is still no judgment in Rayney v Reynolds, a defamation case brought by defrocked barrister Lloyd Rayney against Mark Reynolds, a forensic investigator who worked with the police on the Corryn Rayney murder case. 

At a Curtin University seminar in 2014, Reynolds said there was “no need for a cold case review” into Mrs Rayney’s death because “the offender was identified”. 

Lloyd Rayney was found not guilty of the murder of his wife and the verdict was upheld on appeal. 

The trial in Rayney v Reynolds took place in July 2020, i.e. over two years ago. After inquiries about the judgment, the chief justice Peter Quinlan told lawyers for the plaintiff it “was anticipated it would be delivered” before the end of October. 

After the conclusion of the trial Reynolds discovered that Jenni Hill has been an employee and later a partner of Bennett & Co, the firm acting for Lloyd Rayney. 

She mentioned Martin Bennett, Rayney’s lawyer and the principal of the firm, eight times during her swearing in speech and made glowing references to him in an interview published by the National Library of Australia. 

She worked at the firm for 12-and-a-half years and had not disclosed her association at the time of the trial.  

She has rejected Reynolds’ application that she recuse herself from delivering the judgment, saying “… the failure to disclose the prior working relationship was of no legal consequence”. 

Reynolds is appealing the decision and has asked that, in the meantime, Hill not deliver her judgment.