Congratulations to Trevor Hoffman on an impassioned plea to ensure proper accountability for judges at all levels of our legal system. Our community relies on a high-level of trust for the judicial officers that sit at the apex of our independent judiciary – without this trust our respect for the “rule of law” and acceptance of legal resolutions to social or personal disagreements is under jeopardy. Cases like the one alluded to by today’s opinion writer are seldom the subject of public scrutiny and the legal restrictions put in place by most jurisdictions effectively rule out the raising of concerns about the conduct of judges or possible systematic bias regarding certain matters due to a judge’s personal views on the issues. This is a brave article by a learned writer. It would be great to hear reflections from others with legal or personal experience of issues where a lack of judicial review may exist in other Australian courts including those with federal jurisdiction.

Why just pick on Victorian Judges? At this point in time while Judges, in all nine States in Australia exhibit a state of paranoid schizophrenia when confronted with a request for jury trial, Victorian Judges are not unique at all. They are just as bad as the ones that infest the courts of every Australian State including the Commonwealth; no better and no worse.

To be a Judge a person had to have a special prejudice, a feeling of superiority exceeding a normal persons and an absolute addiction to power. It is refreshing to have a legal academic write such a critique of Victorian Judges. A Judge is a cursed person. He calls down the curse of the satanic forces, when he assumes the role of Almighty God and calls together a Court like a Machiavellian potentate. He cannot be literate, and must not be able to distinguish the difference between a capital letter and a small letter, He must not be prepared to accept there is any higher authority than himself.

An Australian Judge has to be schizophrenic. Yes I have watched the parade of hypocrites at the start of law week, go into a church, and mumble their allegiance to Almighty God, and watched them walk out and get instant Alzheimers. The money is not bad but to sell your soul for thirty pieces of silver the money would have to be good.

Rob Hulls as a boy in Mt Isa appealed to a Magistrates higher self and his client, Murrandoo Yanner, an aborigine was acquitted by a Magistrate on the grounds that the Commonwealth Statute, was a higher authority. The Queensland Court of Appeal ordered a conviction, and in one of the better judgments of the exclusive brethren in Canberra, the High Court found for Hull’s client.

It is a pity he does not remember. He appears to be an advocate these days of Victorian Sovereignty: Victoria as Almighty God the highest God in Australia. The High Court won’t exercise its highest authority and send back every trial without a jury for retrial. It should.

I dont know about anyone else but I found this article most disturbing. Here is a highly qualified lawyer saying judges in Victoria can easily manipulate evidence and get away with it. Surely it cant be that simple for judges to deceive the courts that hear appeals. Surely there are safeguards to stop this happening. What does the legal profession have to say? Is the system as open to abuse as Mr Hofman would have us believe

Professor of Common Law at Oxford, A V Dicey An English Jurist often misquoted as professing the Supremacy of Parliament was to become one of the most respected English legal writers, ever; especially, in respect to constitutional law. Dicey was very much concerned "to the modern threat to freedom in the incursions that were being made into The Rule of Law. Dicey concluded that "the twin pillars upon which our system rests," to quote Professor Keeton A Jurisprudential writer whose writings explore the entire spectrum of jurisprudence (The Passing of Parliament), "are the sovereignty That power in a State to which none other is superior of Parliament and the supremacy Sovereign dominion, authority and preeminence of the common law, administered in the ordinary courts independent of the executive over everyone within the realm, whether public official or private citizen." Dicey's Law of the Constitution (1885)

The Judges of Victoria would do well to reconsider their position. As posted in the Einfeld discussion, they could be sued in Queensland or New South Wales, or Tasmania, civilly for penalties, because S 15C Acts Interpretation Act 1901 ( Cth) gives all these State courts unlimited jurisdiction, when the respondent lives anywhere in the Commonwealth.

It is time Paul Keatings legislation allowing the courts of the States to compete with each other for cases and revenue enacted in 1995 amending the Trade Practices Act 1974 was applied to any uppity individual who thinks he or she is above the law

If Victoria was a separate country as its Judges seem to think, it would be understandable, but it is not supposed to be such a country. If the High Court was an effective body, which it is not, having had the same law applied to it as the Federal Court of Australia has had in 1979, by the Fraser Government, effectively abolishing its criminal jurisdiction, then these Judges of Victoria would be accountable.

When Mal enacted S 77A Judiciary Act 1903 in 1979, he repealed the Australian Constitution.

It says: S 77A ; In every suit in the High Court unless the Court otherwise orders, the trial shall be by a Justice without a jury. This denies the freedom to choose. So far the Rudd government has refused to repeal it; Deconstructed it means that the High Court cannot comply with S 80 Constitution, and exercise criminal jurisdiction. That it does not comply with S 79 Constitution has not yet been accepted by lawyers.

The High Court Rules 2004 make no provision for the exercise of criminal jurisdiction by the High Court. It is in effect not a Ch III court. These rules also insult the Queen and Parliament because despite s 33 High Court of Australia Act 1979 the Queens name no longer appears on process issued out of its Registries.

One would think that allegiance to Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second as required by S 11 of the Act, would require Her name on all process. They have a big flash new Registry in Sydney, and a big flash new courtroom. Perhaps its time we got seven new High Court judges who are prepared to fix the mistakes made in 2004, disallow the castration of the High Court enacted in 1979, and disallow all laws that affect it made by the Parliament of the Commonwealth as unconstitutional since 1903.

S 77 (i) Constitution is a blanket prohibition on the Parliament of the Commonwealth; a prohibition so far allowed to go through to the keeper. While it continues, we have no rule of law in Victoria or anywhere else

This article left me unconvinced. The hypothetical example was of a judge ignoring crucial evidence, thereby awarding the case to the wrong party. When that happens an appeal court will intervene.

Appeal Courts look at the whole of the evidence given at trial. The examination on appeal is not limited to the written judgment.

Ken,

unconvinced you may be, but, I felt like I had had a shared afterlife experience with the author. The complaint to the detail has reduced my father from a successful business man, into a shell of a human being, his faith in the world reduced to tatters and all because of the idiocy of a judge.

I have seen 'such professionalism' too many times - I have witnessed Judges at Supreme Court level put into the Court record gems such as "I haven't read the papers, perhaps prosecuting counsel could enlighten me" or how about "I haven't read the submissions, however, they are usually unnecessary as these things tend to sort themselves out in discussions" - this same Judge then went on to fail to understand what COD stood for and said "why would anyone supply goods without having received payment in advance first" - how would this judge go if he had to order a pizza, or if someone stole it before he got it to the table!

The system is shameful.

If you read Mr Hoffmans article carefully Ken you’ll see that he’s saying that the appellate system is not designed to sniff out crooked judges and because the judicial complaint system in Victoria is useless, a crooked judge can get away with doing what he likes. He quotes one judge saying that appellate judges are very reluctant to overturn the decision of trial judges as regards "primary" facts. I asked a barrister friend about that and he said its absolutely right. He said trying to get a court of appeal to overturn a trial judges finding of fact was like trying to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle.

Take heart readers.

The problem with all Judges, is that they are told by the barristers and solicitors they are gods, when in fact they are a part of the problem. It is not just in Victoria that these people are out of control. If Justice Marcus Einfeld is not truly grateful for the hospitality of Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second extended to him by the Long Bay Correctional Centre in Sydney, he may just be the man to fix the system up.

You see most barristers and solicitors by the time they have finished law school have forgotten all they ever learned about the Constitution, and are half lawyers by the time they graduate. By the time they become Judges, they have forgotten everything they should have learned about the Constitution, and in most cases just muddle through life collecting a rather handsome salary.

We have a magnificent Constitution binding on the courts judges and people of every State notwithstanding anything in the laws of any State. You would think Judges would know all about a binding contract they are part of, but they are usually pretty ignorant about it. Now at school you would also think that a Judge would have been taught to read, and the difference between a word with a capital letter and one with an ordinary letter. Just by being a Judge, they demonstrate that their teachers wasted their time.

You see the word in the contract, the Constitution, in S 79 has the word judges. It means that a Judge is essentially an uneducated man. It means that a Judge suffers from delusions of grandeur. It means that a Judge suffers from a surfeit of pride, because judges (12 of them ) is a word referring to a higher authority than himself, the Trinity of the New Testament.

Because every Judge is not a Christian, he refuses to submit to a higher authority, the Almighty God called upon to bless the Australian people, and so becomes a curse. Lets hope Einfeld works it out. He should have been offered a fine by judges