Chief Justice

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:06): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Attorney-General a question about conflicts of interest.

Leave granted.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: I have been informed by some of the state's most experienced and respected silks that tensions engulfing them and the Chief Justice, the Hon. Chris Kourakis, have exploded into open hostility following his personal pursuit, supported by legislation passed in this place and introduced by the Attorney to scrap the title of King's Counsel. Our most pre-eminent lawyers, parts of the judiciary, the South Australian Bar Association and the Law Society of South Australia fiercely oppose the legislation.

Deeply fractured relations, simmering in private for more than two months, centre on Mr Kourakis' claims on public radio that silks seek the postnominal KC for personal exploitation, and I quote:

They do it for personal reasons, for personal exploitation of an office that is in the public interest. Some of them do so because they think they can get more work interstate, can charge more money.

The rift has now gone nuclear. The Chief Justice took extraordinary and unprecedented steps, using the Courts Administration Authority public website to release a series of explosive letters exchanged between him and 11 of the state's most senior silks, setting off a chain reaction of discontent.

For reasons only he can clearly explain, the Chief Justice published almost two dozen documents. However, these were later removed and reposted because he forgot to redact the signatures of all the silks and his own, and no doubt because of the heated wave of learned complaints. The disintegrating breakdown in relations between the state's legal fraternity and the Chief Justice is something I have never witnessed before in my 53 years as a journalist and, more recently, as a parliamentarian. My questions to the Attorney-General are:

1. Is it appropriate for the Chief Justice to be using the Courts Administration Authority or its website to publicise his personal opinions and protect himself in possible defamation proceedings?

2. Given that no other public servant can publish their personal views on a government website, does the Attorney-General believe it is an abuse of the Chief Justice's position to do so and, if not, why not?

3. Given his clear personal opinion, does the Attorney-General believe the Chief Justice has a conflict of interest and will now need to consider recusing himself from court hearings where a KC or SC is appearing before him?

4. Does the Attorney-General agree that the Chief Justice's personal opinions and blatant political behaviour is damaging the independence, reputation of and public trust in the state's judiciary, and what is he going to do about it?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:09): I thank the honourable member for his questions. I certainly would disagree with much of the way in which the honourable member chose to characterise, or the opinion the honourable member has provided in relation to his questions. Lawyers disagreeing is something that I think we have seen before and I suspect we are going to see again at some stage.

I haven't read all of the documents. I think there was one letter that I was cc'd into that may be amongst the documents that have been put, as the honourable member says, on the website. I haven't had a chance to look at those. I have seen reporting of it, however. The Courts Administration Authority is an independent authority in South Australia so I wouldn't propose, as Attorney-General, to tell the independent Courts Administration Authority how to conduct its business. Similarly, I am not aware if much of what may have been put on there is the representation of the view of the court, which is often what happens, rather than solely a personal view.

In relation to questions about does that mean because someone has a difference of opinion, or a court has a difference of opinion from lawyers about a particular issue, members of that court or a judge of that court can never hear matters from that lawyer again, I don't think that is the case at all. I think there have been many differences of opinion on many different things that don't disqualify someone from appearing before someone, or someone from hearing a matter that someone is appearing in.