Haines blasts Temby

Justinian revisits the fragile excuses advanced by ICAC for failing to investigate the Botany bribery scandal ... Contrary to commissioner Temby's report, Botany alderman had a clear memory of the attempted bribe over a land zoning proposal that affected Rupert Murdoch's interests ... Those were the days, when Rupert owed the Labor Party ... From our bulging archive, February 1990

Click to read more ...

Rosenblum v Foreman

From Justinian's archive ... March 1995 ... When Rupert Rosenblum went to court over a missing house ... Memories of Carol Foreman and her backdated document ... Rocking the foundations of the admin of justice 

Click to read more ...

Some good, some turnips

Pricks on the bench ... Kevin McFee JP (High Court candidate) gives an overview of Justinian's Judges Survey from March 1995 ... Anger uncorked ... From our Déjà Vu Department  

Click to read more ...

Orifice politics

The ghastly events leading up to John Marsden's defamation action against Channel 7 ... Huge drama following the president of the NSW Law Society's decision to out himself as gay ... Accusations in parliament, on television and from former employee ... Confusion about underage sex 

Click to read more ...

Pressing issues

Collapse of Street of Shame's chambers market ... LCA's mission statement for lawyers ... Chrissa Loukas overlooked for 60 Minutes ... Fairfax wipes Bantum of the Opera's costs ... Promotional franger ... What life was like in 1993 ... From Justinian's archive of stories 

Click to read more ...

The bar at war with itself

The tortured path to the Bar's adoption of direct professional access was littered with drama and betrayal ... It's the early 1990s and the NSW Bar was being dragged into the twentieth century ... Fusion, co-advocacy and access to barristers all in the melting pot as the government hatches the Legal Profession Reform Act ... Spin doctors and melting faxes all part of the furious battle to resist change 

Click to read more ...

Vintage Lionel Murphy

On June 29, 1979 Justice Lionel Murphy delivered a rip-roaring speech in Adelaide to the first national conference of Labor lawyers ... Murphy at that time had been on the High Court for four years and was its fifth most senior judge ... Here he made his most revealing public statement since leaving politics ... The role of judges ... Tax avoidance and the courts ... Doctrine of precedent ... The need for judges to change the common law boldly 

Click to read more ...

Melbourne barristers off the hook

It's 1981 and the NSW bar's ethics committee has dismissed suggestions from Athol Moffitt that two Melbourne barristers weren't plying their trade in accordance with the high standards of the Sydney bar ... Suggestions that the trial was protracted by irrelevancies and the use of extreme language - thrown out by the ethics inspectors ... Crushing blow for Court of Criminal Appeal ... From Justinian's Déjà Vu department 

Click to read more ...

The man who replaced Barwick

It's early 1981 and the government has announced that Sir Harry Gibbs will replace Sir Garfield Barwick as chief justice of the High Court ... While Queenslanders might be familiar with Gibbs, few others knew much about him ... In March 1981 Justinian filled-in some of the gaps and made some fearless predictions ... From our Déjà Vu department  

Click to read more ...

Major moments in the Murphy case

For a large chunk of the time Lionel Murphy was a High Court judge (February 1975 to October 1986) he was hanging out with magistrates and District Court judges ... Morgan Ryan case of pressing importance ... "Now what about my little mate?" ... From Justinian's Déjà Vu department ... March 1985  

Click to read more ...

Frying Bacon

Journalist Wendy Bacon faced enormous pressure after she had the temerity to reveal Clarrie Briese's allegations against High Court justice Lionel Murphy ... Briese's evidence to a Senate committee was supposed to be a secret ... DPP Ian Temby also in strife with the Labor maaates ... From Justinian's archive ... September 1985 

Click to read more ...

Struggling with the modern world

Roderick Pitt Meagher has taken over the leadership of the NSW bar at a crucial time in its history ... Here Justinian gets up close to the man at the helm ... "Idiots" at the Law Reform Commission trying to meddle in bar's affairs ... Finding it hard to escape the Dark Ages ... Meagher's first ever interview ... Justinian, February 1980 

Click to read more ...

Temby and police indemnities

Ian Temby in row over indemnities for police who illegally tapped phones ... From Justinian, April 1985

Click to read more ...

The Botany Boys

The Botany Council bribery case ... ICAC less fun in Ian Temby's day ... Earlier Labor scandals in NSW ... Rezoning of Murdoch land  ... Memories far from faded ... From Justinian's archive, February 1990

Click to read more ...