This week
On Monday morning, I was in Canberra for the Hon. Chief Justice Susan Kiefel’s farewell ceremony at the High Court of Australia. Her Honour was the third woman to be appointed to the Court. She served for 10 years before being appointed the first female Chief Justice of the High Court. As you can see from the transcript, the ceremony was very well attended. As is common at these events, a full 5 minutes before the judges came onto the bench, a tipstaff asked those present to ensure that their mobile phones were switched off. From that moment until the judges took their seats, no one said a word. There must have been 200 people in the Court, and there was complete silence. There are very few secular places where 200 people would sit in silence for so long. That fact is reflective of the revered position our apex Court holds in our system of justice and, more generally, in Australian society. On behalf of the Bar, I thank her Honour for her long and distinguished service on our nation’s most important Court.
