Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

Unread emails ... Family law barrister in Adelaide neglects to attend to emails ... Reminders to renew her ticket studiously ignored ... Unravelling chaos ... Trials invalidated ... Liability of Law Society and Conduct Commissioner ... Breach of statutory requirement ... Damages ... From our Team on the Torrens ... Read more >> 

Politics Media Law Society


An Australian Abroad ... An essay with pictures … Egypt and the Grand Museum … No end to the antiquities … Down the Nile on a dahabiya … Tombs and temples … Paris and industrial-scale tourism … The Yarts & Kulture ... Read on >> 

Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

Annihilation of the now ...Trump's campaign of destruction ... Fake emergencies ... Pointless and farcical executive orders ... Gangsterism ... Looting ... Corruption ... Shakedowns ... White rage ... Christian nationalism ... Roger Fitch unloads ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


Tasmanis's Lieutenant Guv (and CJ) Christopher Shenanigans is unlikely to decide the consitiutional impass ... The current guv'nor, former Circuit Court judge and family lawyer Barbara Baker returns to Guv House next week ... Labor hates the Greens and is unlikely to form a coalition government ... Another election looks likely as the numbers for both sides are brittle and unreliable ... However, Baker can ask the Labor leader to test his numbers. 

Justinian's Bloggers

Letter from London ... Weather report ... Starmer sinking ... Farage rising ... Fake law firm ... Fake cases ...  NHS employee cleans up with woke case for hurt feelings ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt files from Blighty ... Read more >> 

"In its self-image, Australia has changed from a nation of tough, resilient Anzacs to a snowflake society of victims. This can be seen in the rise of identity politics, cancel culture, trigger warnings, unconscious bias, workplace Broderickism, LGBTQIA+ pleading, colonisation impacts, hidden disabilities and welfare dependency. Hurt feelings, offensive words, micro-aggressions, workload stress and anxiety now form the basis of workers compensation claims."

Mark Latham MLC - a dissenting statement in a parliamentary report on proposed changes to workers compensation law ... May 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Zeilgeist litigation ... Matt Collins KC on live-streaming of high-profile trials ... Social media nightmare ... Abuse of barristers ... Chilling emails ... Trials as a form of public entertainment ... Courts sleepwalking into a dangerous zone ... Framework needed to balance competing interests ... Paper delivered to Australian Lawyers Alliance Conference ... Read more >> 


Justinian's archive

Justice Jeff Shaw's bingle ... Supreme Court judge's drink-drive experience ... Cars damaged in narrow Sydney street ... Touch driving ... Missing blood sample ... Equality before the law may not apply to judges ... Judges behind the wheel ... From Justinian's Archive ... November 4, 2004 ... Read more >> 


 

 

« Carmody concussed | Main | You ... in the hoodie »
Tuesday
Jun242014

Ticket clipping

The threat to the Queensland bar's power to issue tickets ... Did Bleijie give a nod or wink to this threat? ... The Fiji option looms ... Carmody fallout ... From Queensland barrister Alex McKean 

Freshly configured BAQ practising certificate

The former President of the Bar Association of Queensland, Peter Davis QC, has raised important issues about the role of Brisbane barrister Ryan Haddrick in endeavouring to garner support for the appointment of Tim Carmody as chief justice. 

Haddrick is a former chief-of-staff to the attorney general Jarrod Bleijie. 

Davis said that Haddrick contacted a member of the bar council, on a number of occasions, saying the association should support the appointment of Judge Carmody QC.

Haddrick apparently indicated that a lack of support might well lead to the next 10 judicial appointments not being made from the ranks of barristers. 

Of more serious concern, it is claimed by Davis that Haddrick issued an implied threat that the association could lose the statutory power to issue practising certificates, if it did not back Carmody's appointment.

This is a threat that bears closer examination.

In October 2012, Bleijie decided that Queensland would not join the national regulatory scheme for the legal profession. 

He defended the decision on the basis that the national scheme would create a layer of bureaucracy, "run out of another jurisdiction [and was] not in the interest of the majority of Queensland practitioners".

Mr Bleijie claimed that 85 percent of Queensland solicitors were sole practitioners who had nothing to gain from the changes.

Queensland Law Society data shows the figure was closer to 11 percent.  

The refusal to participate in a national regulatory regime, effectively, excluded oversight of professional regulation of Queensland lawyers from anywhere outside the State.

Arguably, it left Queensland lawyers vulnerable to a "shake-up" of the regulatory system by the government, at some time in the future. 

We need only turn our gaze 5,000 km to the east, to Fiji, to see the consequences of the executive removing control of professional regulation from lawyers.

In 2008, a delegation of the International Bar Association, including Queensland Supreme Court Justice Roslyn Atkinson, looked into the deterioration of the legal system in Fiji.

The report produced by the IBA in March 2009 noted that principle 28 of the UN Basic Principles of the Role of Lawyers provides for disciplinary bodies established by lawyers, an independent statutory authority or a court, with a mechanism for independent judicial review.

The IBA report concluded it was inappropriate for an illegitimate regime, which had threatened lawyers, to be involved in setting up a discipline regime for the legal profession.

In May 2009, ignoring the IBA's recommendations, the Fijian government issued a decree that the Fiji Law Society would no longer have the power to issue practising certificates.

Fijian Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khalum, announced that lawyers in the jurisdiction would have to reapply for their certificates to the Chief Registrar of the Fijian High Court.

The Law Council of Australia expressed concerns about the decision, citing fears for the independence of the legal profession in Fiji. Law Council President John Corcoran said:

"I am concerned that this could be the first step in the Fiji Government's attempts to control the country's legal profession by not allowing lawyers who oppose the regime to practise law."  

Major Ana Rokomokoti (right): issued Fiji practising certificates

It was noted the decree had been issued without any consultation with the Fiji Law Society or the legal profession.

An email sent in May 2009 by the vice-president of the Fiji Law Society to the society's members said that the Chief Registrar had attended the office of the society with six administrative staff and forcibly removed all of the files relating to complaints about legal practitioners.

The Chief Registrar appointed by the military regime was lawyer, Ana Rokomokoti, who was also a major in the Fiji military - the same rank Premier Newman achieved in the ADF.

Major Rokomokoti was "recalled to barracks", leaving her dual jobs as Chief Registrar and Chief Magistrate, in June 2010.

Concerns about placing the power to issue practising certificates in the hands of a government appointee appear to be founded.

A prominent Fijian lawyer, Dr Muhammed Sahu Khan, was in April this year granted a practising certificate in New Zealand after Fijian authorities prohibited him from practicing in that country.

Dr Khan was an opponent of the government of military strongman, Frank Bainimarama.

There have been other examples apparently politically motivated prosecutions, by Chief Registrar Rokomokoti, including that of human rights lawyer Imrana Jalal and Dorsami Naidu, President of the Fiji Law Society and a vocal critic of the government.

The situation in Fiji illustrates the danger inherent to the rule of law from a government assuming control over who is able to practise as a lawyer. 

Bleijie: secret signals to Haddrick?

The allegation in Davis's resignation letter is that the threat to the Bar Association about removal of the right to issue practising certificates was made by none other than Bleijie's former chief-of-staff, Ryan Haddrick.

Bleijie should be pressed on whether he had any involvement in those threats. 

So far the attorney general had been silent about his links to Haddrick and, tellingly, he has refused to respond to the allegations of leaking about the judicial appointment process. 

The question arises as to how Haddrick could think it appropriate to even raise the possibility that the government would remove the right to issue practising certificates without some form of nod or a wink from the attorney.

Bleijie should give a firm assurance that there was neither nod nor wink. 

While he's about it, he should an explanation of the extent of his current relationship with Haddrick, including any recent discussions the pair may have had about judicial appointments. 

But then again, this is Queensland. 

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Member Account Required
You must have a member account on this website in order to post comments. Log in to your account to enable posting.