I Once Met ... Angelo Vasta

Discussion on mental health during Greek law conference ... Cruising the Aegean in dress shoes ... Wig and gown for tribunal hearings ... Dull, boring presentation from the judge ... Question from the rear of the room ... Tom Kelly remembers 

Vasta: no drama, pathos or humour

In the late 1980s I visited the Greek island of Sifnos, where my friend Kevin Anderson, who had recently retired as Deputy Chief Magistrate of NSW, was renting a house. 

A law conference for Australian lawyers and judges was to be held in Athens at that time - and we both registered to attend. 

One of the conference presentations was to be given by Justice Angelo Vasta of the Queensland Supreme Court, in his capacity of President of the Queensland Mental Health Tribunal, with a commentary by the psychiatrist-member of that tribunal. I was asked to chair that session because of my involvement in mental health law. 

At the time Angelo Vasta was attracting some media attention and criticism regarding his non-judicial business/tax arrangements and his friendship with Police Commissioner Terry Lewis, who was subsequently imprisoned for corruption.

The conference adjourned for day-long cruise around some of the Aegean islands closest to Piraeus. It was a hot July day and everyone was as casually dressed and socialising, as one might expect. 

I recognised Justice Vasta from his media photos, sitting quietly out of the way with his wife. His idea of Greek island cruising was to wear black dress shoes, a pair of grey suit trousers and a white business shirt. The only concession to informality was no tie or coat. 

I introduced myself as the chair of his forthcoming session and he produced from his briefcase a copy of his presentation which he gave me, along with a 12-page biography written in the third person setting out details if his career as prosecutor and judge. 

I asked him to try to time his presentation to allow for 10-15 minutes of questions at the end. As he had no small talk or apparent sense of humour, our chat was brief.

Kevin and I later read his presentation. It dealt with the processes and procedures of the tribunal, as if he had read the contents pages of the enabling legalisation, which he then fleshed out. 

I was disappointed that he had ignored so much of the drama, pathos and humour that one can experience while presiding on mental health cases, especially occasional bizarre antics in the hearing room, the wretched lives of many patients, as well as the challenges to those charged with treating them.

However, one paragraph did jump out. He said he sat on Qld Mental Health Tribunal with the psychiatrist who was commenting on his paper and one other. 

He said that when he presided he always wore his black civil robes and wig, but emphasised that he did not adorn himself in his red criminal robes. This was his concession to informality, just as the absence of coat and tie were on the cruise. 

We thought that the concept of a three member tribunal which included only one lawyer who dressed in medieval regalia, to be very odd indeed, especially as the tribunal's sole task was to deal with coerced treatment and detention of mentally ill people.

This issue of robing certainly excited Kevin Anderson, as prior to his recent retirement he had gone out on a limb to publicly oppose attempts by some magistrates in NSW to wear robes on the bench, which he regarded as pointless and pompous. 

That public debate was ultimately killed by then NSW attorney general Terry Sheahan who, to his credit, gazetted a regulation to prevent magistrates robing up. I suggested to Kevin that he might put a question to Vasta on this issue. 

The judge's presentation was delivered in a dull, depressed monotone. Kevin did not arrive early enough to get a seat so he had to stand at the back of the room. 

When it came to question time I gave the first to my friend, who the audience could not see, but could hear. It was directed to the judge's sidekick-psychiatrist. He asked: 

"His Honour has told us of the robes he wears when hearing these appeals. As a psychiatrist what opinion would you form about a patient who, like his Honour, attends these proceedings in fancy dress?" 

There was some laughter from the audience but not from the stage. The doctor gave a homily about the importance of enhancing the dignity of the tribunal proceedings.

Other audience members asked various questions designed to put some bones on the speakers' experiences on the tribunal but received only bland responses.

In 1989, consequent to an inquiry established by the Queensland Parliament, which was conducted by three retired High Court judges, the melancholic Angelo Vasta became the only judge in Australia to be impeached. 

He died in September this year aged 80. He had six children, two of whom also reached public prominence: one was Judge Salvatore Vasta of the Federal Circuit and Family Court (FCFC) whose regular birchings by appeal judges of the Federal Court are often reported in this journal. The other is Ross Vasta MP who is a Federal Liberal Party backbencher. 

Tom Kelly spent 34 years as President of the NSW Psychosurgery Board and lawyer-member of the NSW Mental Health Review Tribunal 

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