Speech by John Howard.

"The reporter referred to me as Howard. Not the Prime Minister the Honourable John Howard. Just 'Howard.'

"He called my speech in the Parliament a "rant." He was trying to delegitimate my position and the Parliament."

Isn't this despicable?

Typical Howard.

Standing on the dignity of your office is the last refuge of the intellectual weakling.

Except that Howard never said it.

It is a paraphrase, mutatis mutandi, of a speech High Court Judge Michael Kirby gave to young lawyers.

See:

http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/24/2013779.htm?section=business

The linked web page is a sanitised summary of Kirby's words. The paraphrase I gave above attributing the words to John Howard, better captures the flavour of Kirby's rant.

Standing on the dignity of your office is the last refuge of the intellectual weakling.

BINGO Steven.. exxxxxxxxactly. Kirby does it himself...but does not see it.

"There are none so blind as those who WILL not see" no, Jesus did not say that.. but He DID say:

"If a blind man leads a blind man, won't they both fall into a pit"

even better I reckon.

Kirby has AN AGENDA

ROMANS 1
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

The last sentence....is GOD's agenda....and standard.

Let me make something plain.

I don't give a rodent's rectal cavity about Kirby's sexual preferences. Nor does it bother me that he campaigns for what he considers to be gay rights.

I do care about our arrogant, self-righteous judiciary.

Here is a sobering thought.

I could call Howard a rotten Prime Minster and suffer no consequences.

If I were to call Kirby a rotten judge I could be cited for contempt.

Why do judges have this immunity from criticism?

Steven, could you please provide a link to the full text of Justice Kirby's speech? The link you provided bears little resemblance to your 'paraphrase', and in fact looks perfectly reasonable, on the face of it.

Boazy, you're raving again. I think that repetitively posting biblical texts to justify homophobia is more like "the last refuge of the intellectual weakling".

CJ Morgan,

Unfortunately I do not have a link to the actual text of Kirby's speech. I based my precis on a segment I heard broadcast on one of the ABC stations.

While I am unable to quote Kirby word for word I can make the following observations.

--Kirby complained that a reporter had referred to him as "Kirby" without mentioning his title.

--The reporter had referred to one of Kirby's written or verbal statements as a "rant."

--Kirby complained that the reporter was trying to delegitimate him and the court. (He used the word "delegitimate"

To learn further I suggest you send an email to Kirby via:

enquiries@hcourt.gov.au

In my summary I have not altered the thrust of the broadcast segment. I do find it interesting that the ABC saw fit to Bowdlerise what was a very strong and contentious speech.

I am still at a loss to know why judges should enjoy such immunity from criticism.

stevenlmeyer,

If you were to read Justice Kirby's address to the La Trobe University Law Students Association delivered on 30 April 2004 (see this link: http://www.hcourt.gov.au/speeches/kirbyj/kirbyj_30apr04.html ), you would find under the heading "Facing criticism - legal and personal" that at least Justice Kirby does not believe judges are immune from criticism. In answer to a question from the audience, he said:

"..............

We live in a free society. The opinions of the High Court and of any other court are not immune from criticism. It is the right of everybody to criticise judicial opinions and to say that they disagree with them. They can even call us 'nominalists'. I mean 'nominalists' is pretty tame. We've been called 'basket weavers' and various other things[36]. 'Nominalists' is positively nice. You can get used to it. I don't ever resent criticism directed at issues.

It is, however, disappointing when criticism and insult are directed at persons. ......"

You may have fallen victim to a bit of media arrogance, specifically that arrogance on the part of journalists or reporters (and their editoriate) that demands to be able to accurately summarize a complex issue and then competently expound upon it in the space of a few short words. When this arrogance is pointed up by observations such as Justice Kirby is claimed to have made, the media-ocrities noses get put out of joint. They, in an attempt to salvage their offended dignity, then feel quite free to report their well-earned rebuke in a way disparaging of a senior officer of the Court. In the process they disparage us all.

I have to agree with CJMorgan; "The link you provided bears little resemblance to your 'paraphrase', and in fact looks perfectly reasonable, on the face of it.". I gather from your use of the word 'sanitized' that Justice Kirby was actually much more incisive than indicated in the report.

It is also instructive to read Justice Kirby's views with respect to aliens, citizenship, and the Constitution in the address he gave.