Contentious magistrate shifted from WA Children’s Court … Constitutional imperilment … Independence of judicial officers … Argy-bargy with head of jurisdiction … Government meddling … Big drama, according to Groper 

Eastern states readers may have been deprived of the unhappy details following Crawford’s spectacular fall-out with Quail after he sought the endorsement of the attorney general to remove her from the court. 

The whole shebang went to the High Court last week seeking a full court hearing on a constitutional point concerning legislation that gave Quail the power to shift children’s court magistrates to other duties. 

It was alleged in parliament that the amendments were designed to defenestrate Crawford, who shortly after their passage was placed on limited duties at the Fremantle and Rockingham children’s courts with the rest of her time earmarked for the Perth Magistrates Court.  

On December 8, Justice Michelle Gordon sent it packing to the Federal Court in Perth. 

Prior to that, in October last year, Crawford had brought proceedings in the WA Supremes alleging the Judge Quail had acted improperly and had bullied her. 

Quail’s barrister David Grace QC told the court that Madge Crawford had a “pattern of behaviour that had continued over the years of doctoring reports of experts …” 

He claimed she made “wholesale amendments to reports” and then sent them back to the authors for their endorsement, while not disclosing this to the parties involved. Further, she was alleged to have created a “toxic environment” in her chambers. 

Quail “lost confidence” in Crawford following a case involving the serious wounding of an Aboriginal lad at the Banksia Detention Centre. 

When Quail asked for an explanation she reportedly said she did not have to answer to him. 

Apparently, there have been instances of tears and misery among the Madge’s staff with numbers of them threatening to resign. 

In October 2020, Quail wrote to the attorney general and the solicitor general saying things had detonated badly and he no longer had a working relationship with Madge Crawford and she should be moved to the Perth Magistrates Court. 

On the advice of the solicitor general, the President of the Children’s Court told her to pack up her chambers and shift to Fremantle. However, she refused to budge. 

Grant Donaldson, for Crawford, told Justice Jeremy Allanson in the WA Supreme Court that Judge Quail should not have engaged with the government to arrange the removal of the magistrate from the Children’s Court. 

On the second day of the hearing, Crawford withdrew her action and it was settled on the basis that costs of nearly $500,000 be paid and that she leave the Perth Children’s Court and instead split her time between Fremantle and Rockingham children’s courts. 

That was upset in May, following the legislative amendments, when she was assigned predominantly to the Magistrates Court in Perth. 

The case that will go to the Federal Court in WA is that the amendments to the Magistrates and Children’s courts acts are not constitutional because they impair to independence of magistrates in breach of Chapter III of the Constitution. 

It’s claimed that the powers conferred on the president of the children’s court compromise the “institutional integrity” of both the children’s and magistrates courts. 

That’s because they impact or detract from the “reality and appearance of the independence” of the courts and they compromise the security of tenure of appointed magistrates.

We’ll see.