Please explain

VicBar in a tangle over gender neutrality ... For and against "chairman" or "president" ... Barrister ties Abbott in knots ... Greatest living human being to perform in one man show ... Liberal Party donor and crony elbowed onto the Judicial Commission ... Kate strikes back  

VicBar grapples with gender neutrality

This is on a par with Tony Abbott being the Minister for Wymyn. It's VicBar's efforts to enter the world of gender neutrality and it's not going smoothly. 

Currently there is a special resolution being considered by the rank and file to change the current word "chairman" of the bar council to bright new word, "president". The special general meeting is to be held on February 18. 

Barbara Myers, assistant hon. secretary of the Yarraside bar, has emailed members in an effort to try and clarify the situation. 

See email

Apparently one barrister has asked for an explanatory memorandum to help him/her (shym) through the difficult job of coming to grips with what's at stake. 

Myers said in a barrage of capital letters: 

"The Executive Summary of the Explanatory Memorandum that accompanied that notice begins with sections on 'The Thrust of the Proposed Resolutions' and 'The Form and Pattern of the Proposed Resolutions'.

The Explanatory Memorandum itself that also accompanied the 19 December 2014 Notice of Special General Meeting also incorporates the paragraphs on the 'Form and Pattern of the Proposed Resolutions' and, for example, a cross-reference explanatory note in numbered paragraph 143 concerning the Clause 24 change to 'Chair of the Meeting'." 

Barbara also attached a handy thee page additional explanation setting out the cases for and against the resolution. 

See attachment

For

• The ABA and every other independent bar, plus the Law Council now has a president. 
• "Chairman" is an anachronism. 
• "President" is gender neutral. 
• "Madam Chairman" involves an obvious internal contradiction,  
• The chairman of the bar council does more than chair meetings. 
• "President" permits different meanings in English, including chief executive of a republic ... an executive officer of a firm or corporation, etc. 

Against

• The proposed resolution would alter more than 100 years of "established terminology". 
• The office is that of chairman of the bar council, not of the bar. 
• The appropriateness of the description "President" in the constitution of other bodies depends upon the precise terms of those constitutions. "Even so, one must be aware of communis error". 
• The description of "Chairman" is not an anachronism. "It is alive and well and ready to do its duty." 
• The description of "Chairman" is gender neutral too. "Any implication to the contrary is discerned only by those who do not understand the etymology of the word." 
• "Madam Chairman" does not involve an internal contradiction. "It simply uses the feminine of the prefix 'Mr'." 
• The description of "Chairman" is "apt". 

The "Against" arguments are an echo of the late Justice Roddy Meagher's fay insistence that female Supreme Court judges be called "Mr Justice". 

Tie breaker

Wallis: tie expertMelbourne barrister Chris Wallis, from Owey Dixon West, has single-handedly pinpointed the essential problem of the Abbott government. 

It's the PM's pale blue tie, along with his appalling fashion sense. 

In a letter to the editor of the Financial Review, published on February 12, Chris says that the blue tie links the PM to his "pre-good government era". 

"The tie is childish, almost boy scout like ... That light blue is a symbol of the Liberal Party, a trite symbol at best. 

Dumping that light blue tie would allow the PM (and his cabinet acolytes) to identify with the full range of business people by wearing the sort of ties that Australian businessmen wear to work - after all he is the representative of all of them - or should be in the good government era."  

Chris forgot to mention that it's not only Abbott's tie, which he seems to sleep in, but what used to be known in schoolboy terms as the "dick-head knot". 

He's right though. The nation would be better shape if we had a PM who could reach beyond monochromatic neckwear. 

Vowel barrister in one man Sydney performance 

Robertson: Dreaming Too Loud

One can see a restrained hand behind a rib-tickling announcement that floated into Justinian's inbox with the headline, "The greatest living Australian". 

Naturally, we thought it must be about Malcolm Turnbull, but no - it was spruiking "a one man show" by Geoffrey Robertson at the City Recital Hall in Sydney. 

It was a strange struggle between satire and deadly serious, but deadly serious won: 

"One of the world's foremost human rights lawyers, Geoffrey Robertson presents the world premiere of his one man show, Dreaming Too Loud at the City Recital Hall on Saturday 2 May. 

An intellectual inspiration for the global justice movement, Robertson returns from commanding Europe's largest civil liberties practice to offer Australian audiences insights into the public and private events that have marked his life's extraordinary trajectory. 

Through archival footage, personal stories and revelations, the man Christopher Hitchens described as 'the greatest living Australian' looks back on a career of illustrious and infamous cases involving Julian Assange, the Sex Pistols, Princess Diana, Salman Rushdie and the Gaddafi family to name a few ..." 

It goes on to mention that the great man has had a "vowel transplant". 

All this for only $99 in A reserve (adults only). 

Hitchens is dead, so we can't check whether he made that claim. 

Anyway, the full spiel is here. Enjoy.  

News from the Reptile Park 

There have been tectonic shifts in the world of law reporting. Financial Review legal affairs ace Hannah Low has upped stakes and gone to do internal communications for Macquarie Bank, while Michael Pelly, author of the Murray Gleeson bio, The Smiler, is drafting speeches for Law Council big wigs and writing a history of the Law Society of NSW. 

We're looking forward to the racy chapters on John Marsden and Kim Cull. 

Golly Gupta 

Opening doors for party donor: Former Liberal Premier O'Farrell and Gupta

There's something fishy about the appointment of Liberal Party donor Nihal Gupta as chairman of SBS, according to opposition media spokesmodel Jason Clare. 

Jase thinks that Gupta is unqualified for the job and the appointment process was "dodgy". 

It was the brilliant panel that included Dame Janet Albrechtsen and Neil Brown QC from the VicBar (aka Neil Diamond MP, former member for Brown Valley) who handled the nomination. 

Gupta has a string of appointments from Liberal friends-at-court, with accompanying emoluments of $163,000 a year: chairman of the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust, the NSW Multicultural Business Advisory Panel and, would you believe it, a member of the Judicial Commission of NSW. 

Yet there have been reports that cast doubts on Gupta's stella business career.  

His business Digital Electronics Corporation Australia is basically a one-man band and his role as chairman of JCurve Solutions ended after eight months.  

No one is admitting that they did background checks on him before his appointment as chair of the SBS. 

Yet, a Liberal Party crony and glad-hander winds-up on the body that judges the judges of NSW. If he's unqualified for SBS, would he be any more qualified for the Judicial Commission? 

A dish best served cold 

Deputy Commissioner Burn: the eyes have it

It has taken years of patient waiting, but SMH journalist Kate McClymont has finally struck back. 

Sydney brief Bruce McClintock has saddled-up for courtroom assaults on McClymont, including the famous Eddie Obeid Oasis defamation case, where the corrupt old manipulator took the Herald down for damages of $150,000 and huge costs over front page allegations that he was ... corrupt. 

This month McClintock has been appearing for deputy police commissioner Catherine Burn in the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the bugging of police officers on the basis of warrants containing no evidence. 

In McClymont's article about the progress of the inquiry she wrote: 

"While Burn remained unmoved at the allegations from another former barrister Greens MP David Shoebridge that she was passing the buck to junior officers, her barrister Bruce McClintock, SC, was making up for it by dramatically rolling his eyes at the line of questioning.

'Could you ask your barrister to stop pulling faces at the committee?' snapped [Labor MLC Adam] Searle." 

Hitherto, Brucey's eye techniques have been one of his most effective forensic devises.