A retired Victorian Supreme Court judge has spoken out against the judicial appointment process, commenting that some judges were intellectually or temperamentally unsuited to the job.
According to a Herald Sun report, retired Supreme Court Justice Frank Vincent has identified four categories of judge, as follows:
Not only did Vincent shoe-horn the judiciary into his four categories, he also labelled some of his former colleagues "sour" and complained that they hang on in their jobs for too long. Vincent himself stepped down last year at 70 - the age of "statutory senility" - although he found that compulsory retirement age "arbitrary". Which all sounds pretty sour to RollOnFriday.
Vincent's tirade was timed to endorse Attorney General Robert Hulls' rather more moderate discussion paper on the judicial appointment process. The AG told RollOnFriday "Victoria's judiciary is of the highest calibre, but we need to ensure that the processes for identifying, attracting and appointing the best and brightest candidates to judicial office evolve to meet the demands of a modern justice system".
Hulls' paper also encourages the use of physical and mental health checks for wannabe judges. What he said about bitter former judges sticking their noses in is - presumably - unpublishable.
Tip Off ROF
According to a Herald Sun report, retired Supreme Court Justice Frank Vincent has identified four categories of judge, as follows:
- Good-hearted but not very bright individuals who are unlikely to do anything terribly wrong;
- Good-hearted people of good personality who are bright and make good judges;
- Nasty individuals who are not very bright, but who can be handled most of the time through the appeal process; and
- Those who are temperamentally unsuited but very smart - a serious problem for any legal system.
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Four judges yesterday |
Not only did Vincent shoe-horn the judiciary into his four categories, he also labelled some of his former colleagues "sour" and complained that they hang on in their jobs for too long. Vincent himself stepped down last year at 70 - the age of "statutory senility" - although he found that compulsory retirement age "arbitrary". Which all sounds pretty sour to RollOnFriday.
Vincent's tirade was timed to endorse Attorney General Robert Hulls' rather more moderate discussion paper on the judicial appointment process. The AG told RollOnFriday "Victoria's judiciary is of the highest calibre, but we need to ensure that the processes for identifying, attracting and appointing the best and brightest candidates to judicial office evolve to meet the demands of a modern justice system".
Hulls' paper also encourages the use of physical and mental health checks for wannabe judges. What he said about bitter former judges sticking their noses in is - presumably - unpublishable.