Australian judiciary is ...% women as at 30 June 2024

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Daily wrap  

• 'Inspiring' Victorian chief justice announces retirement
   

  • Announcement of the retirement of the Chief Justice of Victoria | The Supreme Court of Victoria
     

• Victims of alleged $100m Ponzi scheme take fight to Victoria's Supreme Court - ABC News
   

• Results of High Court applications for special leave to appeal determined yesterday - 5 grants out of 51 applications
   

• Court case should be expedited to help CFMEU fight election, former officials say | Australia news | The Guardian

  In court documents, seen by Guardian Australia, lawyers for Michael Ravbar and William Kane Lowth asked the court to direct the commonwealth to file its defence within a week, with a reply and agreed facts to follow in weeks for a case to be heard “as soon as possible”.

   

• After five weeks of evidence and five years of trauma, a judge weighs who to believe in Reynolds v Higgins | Defamation law (Australia) | The Guardian
   

• Rocky Horror actor Christie Whelan Browne settles sexual harassment lawsuit | Australian theatre | The Guardian
   

• ‘We are seeking to discriminate’: lesbian group wanting to exclude trans women compares itself to Melbourne gay bar | Law (Australia) | The Guardian
   

Editor’s picks

• AIJA Judicial Gender Statistics - Number and Percentage of Women Judges and Magistrates at 30 June 2024 - Australian judiciary as a whole is 46.3% women (41.6% women in superior courts and 48.4% women in inferior courts).
    

• R v Alex & Ors (Trial Ruling No 6) - NSW Caselaw

  • [2] “At 9:25 am on Wednesday, 5 June 2024 (Day 72) I was informed by the Sheriff, Ms Tracey Hall, by phone that she had been contacted by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) concerning a member of the jury, Juror G. Ms Hall informed me that in the course of an investigation unrelated to the trial or to the individual’s jury service, a search warrant had been executed at his residence earlier that morning and his mobile phone had been examined. The examination had revealed that in April 2024, approximately two months into this trial, Juror G had made internet searches relating to one of the accused and relating to at least one other person whose name is connected with evidence in the Crown case.”

  • [20] “…Juror A’s communications with respect to illicit drug dealing with his fellow juror, G, have been exposed as a result of Juror G coming under attention. That would likely cause A discomfort in continuing to sit in judgment on the accused and would adversely affect his ability to concentrate on the task and perform his functions as a juror. For those reasons I made the order for his discharge on 6 June 2024.”
     

• Browne v The King [2024] VSCA 194 (5 September 2024)

  [7] “For the purposes of the present application, counsel swore an affidavit revealing his incompetence…”
   

• Does accepting an office as Vice-Chancellor disqualify you from Parliament? - Anne Twomey - YouTube

  This video is about the disqualification of Members of the Australian Commonwealth Parliament for holding an 'office of profit under the Crown' under section 44 of the Constitution.

  A Commonwealth Minister, Bill Shorten, recently announced that he had accepted appointment to the office of Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra, but would not take up the post until February 2025 and in the meantime would continue as a federal parliamentarian and Minister. This video discusses whether such an office is an 'office of profit under the Crown' and whether disqualification occurs at the point of accepting the office, or only upon later commencing in that office.

   

• Law firms lift rates as deals return [AFR paywall]

  A rare alignment of transactional and countercyclical demand has kept lawyers busy across most parts of the legal market.
   

• Corrs partner heads to Ashurst in run of departures [AFR paywall]

  Real estate partner Alexandra Peace, who was hired from Allens in 2019, is the tenth Corrs partner to leave in the past month.
   

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