Ceremonial - Remarks made by Counsel Following Delivery of Judgments C00/1998 [1998] HCATrans 181 (20 May 1998)

REMARKS BY COUNSEL

FOLLOWING DELIVERY OF JUDGMENTS

BRENNAN CJ

GAUDRON J

McHUGH J

GUMMOW J

KIRBY J

HAYNE J

CALLINAN J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT CANBERRA ON WEDNESDAY, 20 MAY 1998, AT 10.15 AM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

Judgments were delivered in:

Chakravarti v Advertiser Newspapers Limited;

Unity Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd v Rocco Pezzano Pty Ltd; and

Phonographic Performance Company of Australia Limited and Ors v Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations.

BRENNAN CJ: Yes, Mr Jackson.

MR JACKSON: Your Honours, before the Court adjourns, may I have the Court's leave to make an observation on the occasion? This is, we understand, the last judicial function to be performed by your Honour Chief Justice Brennan. That brings to an end a long career as a judge's associate, junior and senior counsel, Judge, President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Justice of this Court and its Chief Justice. I have omitted your Honour's earlier career as student firebrand and agitator.

Your Honours, I have myself had the privilege of appearing before, with and against your Honour on many occasions, in many trials, many appeals, in many courts. There is of course the ceremonial sitting tomorrow, but may I say for those of us here today that, by your Honour's retirement, the nation loses the services of one of its most capable, devoted, honourable and distinguished servants.

BRENNAN CJ: Thank you, Mr Jackson.

MR BENNETT: May I have the Court's leave to add a few words? The effect of the decision in Prowse v McIntyre is that one attains an age on the commencement of the day before one's birthday. It follows that there is some doubt about the validity of the farewell tomorrow and I am particularly glad of this opportunity, therefore, to say a few very short words.

Your Honour has, in the various steps of your Honour's career, been the epitome of the appellate judge. Your Honour has held the balance between excessive intervention and excessive silence. It has always been - and I say this on behalf of the appellate advocates of Australia - a pleasure to appear before your Honour. It has been a task requiring a degree of intellectual rigour but a task which is always one which produces pleasure. The appellate Bars will miss your Honour greatly. May it please the Court.

BRENNAN CJ: Mr Jackson and Mr Bennett, your remarks are extremely valuable to me and I am most grateful to you, as I am to my colleagues. I sat today with them, and at their invitation, to deliver the last of the judgments in which I participated as a member of this Court, and I thank them particularly, not only for their courtesy, but for the support and friendship that has been extended to me during my office as Chief Justice.

As for the Bars, I think you would appreciate that the work that is done in this Court depends very heavily upon the Bar and, if I might say so, for my part I do not think that it would have been possible to do the work without the incisive analyses that have been brought to the Court by gentlemen such as yourselves. I am more than conscious of the times that you, Mr Jackson, and I have spent together in courts in one fashion or another, with some of the happy stories that one can recollect.

If I might say so, Mr Bennett, although I am conscious of the reported case to which you refer, the practice of this Court - and of course the practice of the Court is the law of the Court - quite clearly establishes that the seventieth year is attained on the last moment of the eve of one's birthday. Tomorrow's ceremony, therefore, I judicially declare, if it be the last function that I perform, will be a valid ceremony. I thank you also for what you have said and, for my part, the dialectic with the appellate Bar has been for me one of the most stimulating and rewarding functions that one could imagine. I have, indeed, in that respect had a most fortunate life.

The Court will now adjourn to reconstitute in Court No 2.

AT 10.28 AM THE COURT ADJOURNED