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CJ urges bar to be more outspoken

CJ urges bar to be more outspoken

Chief Justice Robert French has welcomed more women becoming barristers, but urged the entire bar to fulfil its duty to speak out on rule of law issues.

CJ urges Bar to be more active

The Chief Justice of Australia urged the Victorian Bar to be more active in protecting the rule of law in the state, and in Australia, when he opened new barristers’ chambers in Melbourne in November 2014.

Speaking at the opening of Owen Dixon Chambers west extension on 7 Nov 2014, CJ Robert French said:

…the Bar as an institution has a public voice which it can use to affirm and reaffirm the importance of rule of law and the importance to the rule of law of just laws which can command moral assent.

In the cacophony of sometimes strident debate about how we should respond legislatively to confronting social problems, the calm measured collective advocacy of the Bar is indispensable.

The West Extension during construction: Kane photo
The West Extension during construction: Kane photo

He also highlighted the changing nature of barristers:

The Bar is a growth profession. When the first Bar Roll was created in a black exercise book in 1900 there were 63 signatures in the book by the end of that year. According to the website of the Victorian Bar, as of last evening, there are 1973 counsel practising in Victoria of whom 248 are Queen’s Counsel or Senior Counsel and 1725 are Junior Counsel.

There has also been a major change in the profile of the Bar. Today 536 of the 1973 counsel practising in Victoria are women. Regrettably only 26 of them are Queen’s Counsel or Senior Counsel out of 248 who hold that honour. Victoria’s first woman Chief Justice, who is present here today, has been in that office for 10 years.

The change in the representation of women at the Bar and the legal profession generally represents a substantial change in social attitudes and the expectations and aspirations of women which has occurred since the 1960s. Much, of course, remains to be done, not least on the subject of work practices within firms and at the Bar and briefing practices by solicitors and their clients.

Fortunately, the Victorian Bar expressly asserts, as a matter of policy, its support for a diverse and egalitarian Bar where a variety of views are encouraged, accommodated and respected.

To welcome those developments it is not necessary to be a social progressive. It is sufficient to recognise the aspiration towards equality of opportunity that we express through social norms and, of course, related to it the principle, to be applied in our courts, that all should be equal before and under the law.

http://www.hcourt.gov.au/publications/speeches/current/speeches-by-chief-justice-french-ac

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