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Goings On ... • Friday, December 12, 2014 Update ... Aussie bloke revving around Fernberg ... No Banco farewell for John Muir ... London clerk fetches-up at Doyle Chambers ... Government Gazette issues grovel to Supreme Court judges ... Also, latest from The Map ... The Ellis' case gets political ... Lawyer pinged for lifting cash ... Tribunal in strife over PDF practice direction
Daphnis (left): tooling around Bardon's hilly terrain JUST as well your corresponded has kept up his subscription to The Road Ahead, the official organ of the RACQ - otherwise I would have completely missed the "lifestyle" profile of HE Daphnis de Jersey.
There it was alongside features on 10 things you can do with a mango and groovy technology tips.
"[The governor] is very much grounded in his country origins ... at the same time, he's just as comfortable taking tea with the British monarch."
Importantly, he reveals the dichotomy at the heart of his function as Viceroy of the Pineapple Belt.
"As Governor, his aim is to develop a greater public understanding of the role, which he says can sometimes be rejected as 'anachronistic and irrelevant', while at the same time doing his best to 'support, inspire and enthuse' the community."
Daph adds:
"It might sound high-falutin', but I've always had a desire to help people and that's why I entered the legal profession.
It was to help people resolve their disputes and differences by resort to a predictable set of legal principles. But inevitably it extended beyond that ... to the broader questions of social justice."
It's not only a warm and squishy profile about how HE can inspire all Queenslanders, but The Road Ahead cracked an important scoop.
Barrister son David de Jersey has allowed the Gov to mind his British racing green Mini Cooper World Championship 50.
"Like most Aussie blokes, the ability to put this beauty through its paces on the twists and turns of Bardon's hilly terrain is too much of a temptation."
It's a rev-heads paradise at Fernberg.
* * *
Justices Phil McMurdo, Martin Daubney and David Boddice have extracted a significant grovel from the Government Gazette, aka The Carmody Crier, aka The Bowen Hills Bugle, aka The Courier-Mail.
The C-M is one of the worst newspapers in the country and can be relied on to get things wrong.
In July the rag reported that McMurdo, Daubney and Boddice were behind a campaign to force Knock Aboiut to quit as CJ.
All three denied the allegation, but the Gazette next day reported that the judges had meticulously denied selective words in the original article.
Today (Dec. 12) the paper published:
"Our follow up story may have conveyed an impression that the public statement made by the judges was something less than a complete denial of the original allegations."
Regrets, apologies, etc. Full grovel here ...
* * *
Dan Perry, fresh from Thirty Nine Essex Street Chambers in Blighty, has landed in Brisbane as practice manager at Shane Doyle's Level 27 Chambers.
As one wily silk remarked, "The man on the Clapham Omnibus arrives bewildered in Wooloongabba".
Shane loves his connections with the Old Dart, being a member of Essex Court Chambers at 24 Lincoln's Inn Fields. He effused to his Brisneyland floor:
"I am delighted Dan has joined our chambers. He is an excellent clerk with over 20 years experience at leading commercial chambers in London. I am confident that this will not only cement Level 27's position as the leading set in Brisbane but ensure that the highest quality of service is delivered to our clients in Australia and beyond."
Dan was more modest: "I very much look forward to being an integral part of the long term future of the Set."
What with everything going Queeny in Brisneyland, a Pommy practice manager is entirely fitting.
* * *
Meanwhile, things are hotting up down on The Map.
DPP Timsy Ellis lost his appeal against his conviction for negligent driving causing death.
Retired Yarraside judge David Harper delivered his decision earlier this month, upholding Madge Chris Webster's original conviction.
A pre-Christmas sentencing is scheduled for December 23 - unless Ellis goes for a full court appeal, which would involve more imported judges, prosecutors and defence counsel.
The accident happened in March 2013. Ellis said he fell asleep at the wheel and his car went to the wrong side of the highway, killing Natalia Pearn in a head-on collision. The courts, so far, have decided he didn't fall asleep.
Natalia Pearn: died in head-on collision with DPP's Mercedes
The DPP has been on leave with full pay and political heat is building that he should step down. Ellis, 59, officially has a lifetime appointment, or till age 72, whichever comes first.
Last week, Lara (the Skittle) Giddings, former Taswegia premier, who is now the shadow AG, called for "an end to uncertainty over the DPP's position".
The Skittle insisted that AG, Vanessa Goodwin, "must give good reason why Mr Ellis should stay in his job or seek to have him immediately removed under s.10 of the DPP Act".
Section 10 talks of removal from office due to incapacity, misbehaviour or bankruptcy.
There's been plenty of tuft-tutting and free advice in high places, to the effect that Timsy, at the outset, should have done what a lot of defence lawyers would highly recommend: resign, plead guilty and get a fine with a suspended sentence.
* * *
Sadness gripped people in the north of The Map after they heard local lawyer Adrian John Hall was found guilty of four counts of squirreling other people's money while working at Grant Tucker's law shop.
Between August 2010 and July 2012 he trousered a measly $10,780 in cash from clients. The Law Society quickly suspended the poor wretch's ticket, leaving customers stranded all over Launceston.
The Examiner reported that the "lawyer's face turned red and his transition glasses darkened when a jury found him guilty ..."
* * *
Thankfully, Launceston lawyer Shaun McElwaine has saved the Tas Resource Management & Planning Appeals Tribunal a heap of embarrassment.
The tribunal had the bad idea of asking that the important parts of submitted PDF documents be highlighted or tabbed by practitioners.
Apparently, it was thought that this would assist the RMPAT to more efficiently search the contents of lodged PDF documents.
Silly tribunal. In a two-and-a-half page letter Shaun pointed out this would require the purchase of Adobe software which is not readily compatible with Apple Macs. He simply doesn't want to buy software that may not work for his PDFs.
Further, and better, in a letter to the tribunal he draws the registrar's attention to Tasmania's Competition Policy Reform Act, which applies the Competition and Consumer Act (Cth) to the Apple Isle.
Helpfully, he explains the definition of exclusive dealing - not, he hastens to add, that the tribunal is engaging in exclusive dealing by rejecting documents that are not properly highlighted.
"The concern which I have is focussed at a much higher level of abstraction. I do not consider that it is appropriate for the tribunal, as a component of the executive government of the state of Tasmania, to impose a requirement upon each user of its services which in turn requires the acquisition of software from a third party supplier, for a fee, in order to continue to have access to the services which the tribunal is obliged to supply in discharge of its statutory obligations."
Cripes. Here it is in full ...
Justinian
An earlier version of this story reported that Chief Justice Knock About was not keen for Justice John Muir's farewell ceremony to take place in the Banco Court. All has been resolved and we're happy to say that the Banco it is for Muir's J's valedictory on Friday Dec. 19.
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