Snakes alive

Carmody fallout ... QC time at the Cauldron ... Politburo member disappears ... Maley fallout ... NT gets inquiry into appointment of judges and magistrates ... Pro bono advice under attack 

Snakes

Carmody's Supreme Court colleagues

It's as though one of the leaders of the Politburo had disappeared from the Kremlin lineup for the May Day parade. 

Out comes the latest issue of Hearsay, the Queensland bar's version of Pravda, without a word of mention of recent tumultuous events: the resignation of president Peter Davis and the fracture over the appointment of Chief Justice Knock About.  

It's as though Davis never existed and that Carmody's arrival at the court was a refined process of sweetness and light. 

Maybe top brass at the bar are playing it safe, what with QC selections around the corner. 

Sixty-five have applied for the government bestowed bauble, and they are listed here in order of the date each application was received. 

A special sub-committee of worthies prepares a short list of those who should be gonged. The list then goes to the CJ, who in normal circumstances would circulate it to other judges. 

Each judge would tick the ones they liked, tally it all up and, bingo, that would be the new silks for the year, subject to the captain's pick, e.g. the selection of Soapy George Brandis for SC, even though he wasn't practising at the bar. 

The issue now is how much consultation will go on among the judges, some of whom the CJ has described in a private conversation as "snakes". 

When the Queen of Queensland's trinket was reintroduced in 2013 (announced in 2012) the protocol was changed so that if the list the attorney general approves for letters patent differs from the list sent by Knock About, the difference would be made public. 

Since Knock About and Jiving Jarrod are unhealthily close, without actually exchanging fluids, it would surprise if the lists differed. 

Vipers

CLP party room

Northern Territory barristers has been blowing red desert dust out of their ears. 

Buffalo Bruce confides that some of the inner sanctum of the bar have gone soft and don't want any more fuss and nonsense with the Top End government. 

This follows the resignation of Madge Peter Maley after it was revealed he was trying to extract $10,000 for the Country Liberal Party from the trousers of a mining prospector, in exchange for which the donor could take a peek at confidential government files. 

The bar put out a statement saying that Maley's resignation from the magistracy, "resolves the association's concerns with respect to the impact of his apparent connections with the Country Liberal Party ... 

"The Bar Association further confirms its absolute confidence in the independence and integrity of all Territory judges and magistrates ..." 

Also, see the censure debate in parliament against the government here

Chief Minister Adam Giles and his drone of an attorney general John Elferink previously had gone to extraordinary lengths to defend Maley's actions, declaring it was a great thing for this judicial officer to be handing out CLP how-to-vote cards and sitting on the board of the party's corporate slush fund. 

The whip-smart AG told parliament: 

"It is a fantastic society where a magistrate can have a political opinion, where he can be a member of a political party." 

And the chief minister wasn't far behind: 

"We are proud of the fact we have a competent, able man as a member of the CLP, and he happens to be a magistrate ..." 

The ancient rules about judicial independence were being redrafted in Darwin. 

However, seeking to raise money in exchange for allowing the donor access to government documents was a step too far, even though at the time Maley was a Darwin solicitor, not a magistrate. 

The dodgy Madge fell on his sword and four days later Giles had asked his department to draw up terms of reference for a review of "the process of appointing judicial officers and their professional codes of conduct". 

He wants the public "to have full confidence in our legal system". 

This would run to a register of judges' interests, similar to declarations required of politicians. 

Giles also wants the review to look at how to create a specific section of the NT Legislative Assembly's register of interests for declarations of pro bono legal work. 

Politicians would be required to declare if lawyers had provided them with free legal advice. 

By claiming that members of the bar provided the leader and deputy leader of the Opposition with free advice, the chief minister is seeking to discredit the NT bar's campaign for an inquiry into Maley. Giles said: 

"Both have failed to declare the free legal advice they have received from members of the bar association, an organisation which has become an active player in the recent campaign against a member of the judiciary." 

He was referring here to an inquiry into the previous Labor government's gifting of the $3 million Stella Maris site in Darwin to Unions NT. 

See reports here and here

The inquiry was conducted by former CEO of the Australian Crime Commission John Lawler, with the government declining to fund the Opposition's legal representation. 

So, barristers are in trouble for giving free advice to one side of politics, but a magistrate is hailed as an inspiration for his public involvement in the other side of politics. All perfectly sound. 

The allegations that saw Maley leave the bench had been around the Top End for a while. The local Daily Rupert had trouble getting the story past the lawyers, but there was a breakthrough once shadow attorney general Michael Gunner read incriminating emails onto the parliamentary record. 

The NT News subsequently published this report.  

Former deputy chief minister Dave Tollner put a cherry on top of this steaming pile of merde when he said, in a radio chat, that the CLP parliamentary members are "a nest of vipers". Dave had lost the confidence of his party after he called the son of a fellow MP, "a pillow biter ... [and] shirt lifter".