The article mentions the appointment of Susan Crennan to the high court. We are left to wonder if her appointment was a result of the power of the vaginaocracy lobby or whether she has a terrific legal mind. Therein lies the danger. Ex-cathedra pronouncements by the A-G on judicial appointments should and must be scrutinised no matter which party holds office.

Sadly I think that efforts to peel away the layers of secrecy covering our legal system will be met with the usual hubris and cant from members of the legal club. I can imagine the susurrant conversations in the ‘Club’ with affronted members saying……’judges being judged, good lord’ and similar themes.

The legal landscape in Australia seems to be going through a self-parody phase. In some parts of Australia we have Mafia style law where the guilty are speared or bashed. One chief justice, a prisoner of PC, has entertained us with his public mea culpa for delivering the wrong punishment. There is the issue of one high court judge who was so honest we’re not allowed to read his file for about another 15 years. We have a sitting high court judge who broke the law for 13 years. In NSW our chief justice was unaware that one of his judges cruised the crappers at Wynyard station looking for young boys. Who can forget the recent piece of legal theatre when a well-lubricated judge crashed his car. Was his crapulous life known to his political colleagues prior to his appointment to the bench? Certainly not. His liking for alcohol manifested only on the day of his appointment. The punters were supposed to believe the blague of his political mates. The punters were invited to affect a gob-smacked bewilderment to match the feigned shock of those who appointed him.

My advice to Glenn Martin SC who advocates and independent body to scrutinize judicial appointments or acts of misbehaviour is to buy a very thick overcoat because he’ll remain out in the cold for many years.

Public grilling of nominations for judges is not a good idea. While we can learn much from the U.S.A. this idea is not one of them. It would become a slanging match which would discourage good people coming forward.

I guess EnerGee (top post) has been doing the rounds because he/she is energetic??

We will only get the law, & the sentencing we want, & deserve, when we get the system correct.
That requires all judges to be elected, by the public, for a term, not exceeding 5 years.
Most people I know are dismayed at the redicules sentences.
I have always found it hard to understand how we chose judges. We get people who have spent all their working lives, touting for the business of criminals, & then make them judges, of these criminals.
It appears to me that these judges will have more affinity with their previous customers, than they will have with the general public.
The convoluted form of the law is designed to keep all others out, & has has often done so, to the detriment of the general public.

What bothers me, is the people never get a say. Its rare for true justice to come about when 95% of the population have no access to the courts other than as a defendant. The learned ones who preside, are more interested in the tort of the law, rather than the justice of the law.

Why should our judiciary system be in the control of one group, the legal profession. Judges should represent the people. Because you have a semantic tort education, ( which no one else understands) doesn't mean you have understanding of 95% of the people who come before you. Quite the contrary, when you consider that lots of our politicians are lawyers, see the result we get.

Scrutiny of those holding the power over peoples future, should be there to be seen. Until we remove the legal profession as the sole controlling authority over our judical system, nothing will change and justice will only become further from the reach of the vast majority of the people.

After all isn't it these learned ones, giving those assaulting and robbing people, community service. Then charge the victims because they protected their property and themselves. Isn't it the lawyers who charge so much, those trying to get justice, have to lose all they own and still not get justice. Why don't these judges jail those killing with cars, why don't they jail those beating people up on the street, for years instead of months.

We don't need a US style system, we need a new Australian system the people will vote for and gives justice to the economically and freedom oppressed, the people of this country. I reckon you'd get better justice with an ex crim as judge, than a member of the bar.

If you've got something to hide, you shouldn't be a judge.

Come off the grass, Hasbeen.

Electing judges is just about the worst thing we could do. Elections are political. No matter how hard you work to remove the politics from elections, they will always be political - because the process of doing and saying things in order to securing votes is inherently political.

So what you end up with is political - and worse, potentially populist - judges. The very concept leaves me shuddering.

And what ridiculous sentences exactly are you referring to? Sure, it is possible to point to a few stand-out cases where prisoners seem to have received light sentences, but you don't change your whole system to account for a couple of outrider cases. In my view most judges get it mostly right during sentencing. If you have ever read sentencing remarks, you can see how much of a balancing act the judges are trying to perform - between retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, and so on. The banshee wailing of an ill-informed public ("lock em up and throw away the key!") is ignored, and so it should be. Mobs are notoriously poor at exercising justice.

I would recommend Geraldine Mackenzie's book "How Judges Sentence" to anyone who thinks judges flagrantly get it wrong. Mackenzie has interviewed a bunch of Queensland judges and it amazes me just how well our judges perform the task of trying to reach a just, balanced outcome. It's not as easy as talkback hosts - or NSW Premiers! - seem to think. And if a particular judge gets it flagrantly wrong, well, that's what we have an appeals process for.

Remember the Balinese judge who proudly told the cameras he'd never registered a not guilty verdict in a drugs case? That's what we would end up with if our Bench became driven by populism. In fact it'd make a good slogan: "Anth for Judge: I'll never acquit a drug suspect!"

It might be retributive, but it ain't justice.

Anth