Australia’s High Court Justices Are The Most Fascinating Powerful People You’ve Never Heard Of

A lot’s been happening this week – what with racism being alive and well in America and Australian newspapers behaving badly – so it’s kind of understandable that you didn’t know that Australia has a new High Court judge. Justice Susan Crennan is retiring next year, before she turns 70 and is deemed senile by the Constitution, and Geoffrey Nettle QC a.k.a. the judge who sentenced Jill Meagher’s killer was announced this week as her replacement. The current Victorian Court of Appeal judge will take over the role next February.

Apart from members of parliament who can apparently give themselves crazy far-reaching powers by passing a single bill, the seven judges who make up Australia’s highest court are easily some of the most powerful people in the country. Professor George Williams is a constitutional law expert and all-round smart person, and had this to say in the Sydney Morning Herald last month: “The seven judges of the High Court have the final say on key aspects of the law. In recent years they have issued decisive rulings on the Gillard government’s Malaysian plan, NSW political donation laws, the national schools chaplaincy program and Western Australia’s Senate election. It was also the High Court that first recognised native title and in the years to come it may determine, for example, that Australian law incorporates a right to privacy.”

So yeah. It’s pretty important. And since judges are only made to retire at the age of 70, young nominees can stick around for decades. Current Justice Susan Kiefel was appointed in 2007, and won’t age out of the job until 2024. Given that these people make the most important legal decisions in Australia, it might be kind of useful to know a bit about the judges who will be sticking around for a while.

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Mardi Gras Marches, High School Dropouts And Taekwondo: Meet The High Court

The head honcho of the High Court is Chief Justice Robert French, formerly a long time judge in the Federal Court (where they decide whether the government wasn’t fair in making a decision and other less interesting stuff). He’s a republican, has a strong background in native title, and did we mention he was president of UWA’s liberal club and ran for office at 22 for the Liberal Party? Also a former judge of the Supreme Court of Fiji. Weird.

And then there are the women on the High Court. Susan Kiefel AC is pretty incredible. She dropped out of high school after Year Ten, was a secretary for a while, and while working for a barrister, decided to finish high school and study law. She studied at night while working and still managed to graduate with honours and go on to do a Masters of Law at Cambridge. She became the first woman in Queensland to be made a QC (in 1987, wow), was a Commissioner at the Australian Law Reform Commission, and sat on the bench of the Supreme Court of Queensland and Federal Court of Australia. She’s one of two female judges who will remain on the High Court after Justice Crennan’s retirement, along with Virginia Bell AC.

Justice Bell skipped the corporate law route and went to work for the Redfern Legal Centre straight out of law school. She was a public defender who ultimately went on to be a judge in the Supreme Court of NSW and its Court of Appeal. She’s also the first lesbian to serve on the High Court, participated in the first Mardi Gras in 1978 that was met with unexpected police violence and represented those who got arrested for being involved.

There’s also Stephen Gageler SC who was raised by a sawmiller and went on to represent the Federal Government in cases like the Malaysia Solution and tobacco plain packaging, study at Harvard, and also get a black belt in taekwondo. Patrick Keane finished his degree with a freaking university medal, and has been outspoken on the fact that we have way too many federal laws that are way too hard to understand. He also considered becoming a professional cricket player.

All current High Court justices were chosen not by voters, but by the Governor-General in council, with the advice of the Prime Minister and Attorney-General. Another replacement is going to be needed next year, when Justice Kenneth Hayne, a Rhodes Scholar who also got a degree at Oxford, retires. Let’s hope they choose someone like Glenn Close in The West Wing.