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Text and/or other creative content from this version of List of Justices of the High Court of Australia by time in office was copied or moved into List of Justices of the High Court of Australia with this edit. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

On 2 September 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved from List of Justices of the High Court of Australia to List of justices of the High Court of Australia. The result of the discussion was moved.

This article describes Justices as being "appointed by the Prime Minister." This is incorrect, and suggests that whoever wrote it has been overly influenced by United States practices. Justices are appointed by the Governor-General in Council, on the advice of the Cabinet. The nomination of Justices for approval by the Cabinet is done by the Attorney-General. The Prime Minister plays no formal role in the process, though he will have an opinion in the Cabinet discussion, more so if he is a lawyer. But Fisher, for example, deferred entirely to Hughes in judicial appointments, as did Chifley to Evatt. Adam 12:58, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And Barton to Deakin.

The formatting of the tables makes it a bit of a pain to change details. Is there another type of formatting that can make this more edit friendly? Xtra 01:36, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What is difficult about it? Ambi 02:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

the alternating colours. the lack of being able to see what detail corresponds to what header when editing. but i suppose it is not the most complicated table around. i may just be not used to playing with tables. Xtra 02:41, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It shouldn't be too much of a problem, we won't need to change it again until September 2007. --bainer (talk) 22:02, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The title uses "Judge", the text uses "Justices" - which one should we use? enochlau (talk) 11:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've compiled a list of judges and their high schools at User:Enochlau/High Court Judges. I'm not sure it's worth including in the tables on this page (the tables are quite full already), but the info is there if anyone wants to use it. There are 4 I can't find, being Taylor, McHugh, Heydon and Crennan. enochlau (talk) 14:09, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could some explain the difference between "retired" and "resigned" in the reason for leaving office column? Shadow007 07:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

After the Constitutional Amendment, it would differentiate those who were compulsorily retired on the grounds of age to those who weren't, but I believe that Justice McHugh was the first person ever affected by the mandatory retirement age; the others all resigned short of their term expiring. Not sure about beforehand; I got this out of a book that's taken from the High Court companion. JRG 02:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that's the case, because there were people both retiring and resigning before the change came in. I think the difference is just the standard dictionary definition difference, that is, retiring is stopping work completely whereas resigning is just leaving a particular job. The source for all these is indeed the Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia. --bainer (talk) 06:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With great respect to the Oxford Companion, I do not see how Sir George Rich at the age of 87 after 37 years on the Court could be said to have "resigned".203.17.236.101 (talk) 02:33, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Fat Red (talk) 02:38, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed this section as it was unsourced. JRG 13:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the future Justices of the High Court, when barristers, argued cases before the High Court. Indeed, only four did not: Griffith, Barton and O'Connor (the original three members of the court, who could of course not have argued before it) and Powers, who remains the only solicitor to have been appointed to the court. Below is a list of the Justices, ordered by the number of times each appeared before the court (which appears in brackets after their name):

Interesting list even if unsourced. Where is Heydon though? Shadow007 04:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The table is fantastic but the internal link for Sir Alan Taylor redirects to an American historian of the same name. I wish to change it to Alan Taylor (jurist) which is the name of the article, only it does not show up when I try to edit. Can someone do it please? Doktor Waterhouse 12:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated the table, doing a date update and fixing three Wikilinks of Judge's names (Taylor, Kirby and Owen) so that disambiguation pages are bypassed. The changes don't appear to have made their way through to the table as it appears in this list article however. I'm not sure how the transclusion process actually works - so if anyone can offer a clue as to how to get the list to update properly, it would be appreciated.GlenDillon 09:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Problem solved, though I resorted to first removing then replacing the table. Might have been a more elegant solution, but... GlenDillon 13:07, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So Michael Kirby retires on 2nd February according to many sources (including his wiki page) but this article [1] seems to imply that he'll pass his last judgement at 2pm on the 3rd February. Does this make his retirement the 2nd or the 3rd? How does this retire thing work in law? Is here simply cleaning up his work from the previous day (and thus, not technically working on the 3rd?) or does this constitute him working on the 3rd (and thus making that his last day?) Am I looking into this too deeply? Serrin (talk) 10:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that it is simply ambiguous reporting. The four case listed here would seem to me to be the ones the article refers to. It would be unusual to have the new justice (Bell) sworn in on the morning of the 3rd and Kirby still conducting business in the afternoon. Every other source I've seen has said that he retired on the 2nd. Shadow007 (talk) 00:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The judgments in question were handed down on the afternoon of the 2nd: ^[1].203.17.236.101 (talk) 02:35, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than listing each and every institution of higher learning, would it be more fitting and, more importantly, relevant to name the law school from which these Justices graduated or, at the least, learned the art and science of law, considering one's law school (or law schools) are substantially more important than the universities from which one read on matters not related, or indirectly related, to the law?

I note that Susan Maree Crennan, a current puisne justice, is not as purported a graduate of the Melbourne Law School, or the law school of the University of Melbourne, but that she is a graduate of the Sydney Law School. I do note that her inclusion as a justice with legal education and training from the Melbourne Law School may be acceptable granted the fact that she earned a postgraduate diploma in constitutional history; however, as the diploma or, more generally, degree was in history (Postgrad. Dip. Hist.) and not law, according to the High Court of Australia's website, and given the above request to change alma matre or alma matre to law school(s), it seems reasonable that Crennan have the University of Melbourne removed from her entry. --Qwerty Binary (talk) 08:39, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At the swearing-in ceremony for Justice Nettle, the Attorney-General referred to Justice Nettle as the 50th High Court Justice. The transcript is here. Wikipedia lists him as the 51st. Unless the Attorney (or rather his speechwriter) made an error, it seems that for some reason Albert Piddington is not considered to have been a High Court Judge. This is the only other possible explanation.

Is there reason to doubt that Piddington was a High Court Justice? His article indicates he received a commission but did not sit on the Court. Section 72 of the Constitution simply says that a Justice is appointed by the Governor-General in Council; so perhaps the commission is enough. The current High Court of Australia Act provides for an oath or affirmation to be made before "proceeding to discharge the duties... of office". But this seems predicated on the person being already a Justice. I am not sure what applied at the time of Piddington's appointment.

Given that the Commonwealth's Attorney-General appears to have publicly suggested (albeit impliedly) that Piddington was not Justice, it warrants consideration here I would have thought. Shadow007 (talk) 02:17, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that the High Court's website lists him as a Justice (http://www.hcourt.gov.au/justices/former-justices/former-justices/albert-bathurst-piddington-kc). Seems the Attorney just made an error. Shadow007 (talk) 00:08, 6 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Request received to merge articles: List of Justices of the High Court of Australia by time in office into List of Justices of the High Court of Australia; dated: January 2018.

Proposer's Rationale: The list by time in office essentially duplicates the list of Justices but is sorted by time in office. I propose to merge the list by time in office by modifying the list of justices to include a column "time in office" and making the table sortable. Apart from anything else it would remove the need to edit the list by time in office when an incumbent judge moves up the list. I don't expect it to be controversial, but thought I would include a discussion in case there were other views. Find bruce (talk) 10:21, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In the absence of any objection, I have merged content from List of Justices of the High Court of Australia by time in office to here Find bruce (talk) 04:19, 6 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Below is a discussion from my talk page which I have copied here so that other editors can have their input. To me the column is a bit of a mess & there does not appear to be any authoritative source, nor any proper basis for deciding whether a person should be treated as retiring or resigning. Some such as Evatt are clear while other such as Webb appear to have no basis. The distinction fails to impart anything useful in the case of Gibbs. Similarly French had a retirement ceremony ([2016] HCATrans 293) not a resignation ceremony. I am leaning towards Shadow007's suggestion of deleting the column as it doesn't communicate any useful information. Find bruce (talk) 07:06, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Although the motivation for Gibbs leaving the Court was the impending operation of section 72 of the Constitution, he actually resigned on 5 February, one day prior to the operation of section 72 on 6 February (his birth date being 7 February). It is clear that this was done in order to ensure that Mason could be sworn in immediately (6 February being a Friday) rather than the following Monday.

Consistent with how the resignation/retirement part has been dealt with in the article, I believe this should be recorded as a resignation not a retirement because he would have had to formally resign his commission on 5 February rather than simply allow the Constitution to operate on 6 February. Although it was a matter of one day, there seems to me to be no reason to distinguish this situation from those of Kirby and French, for example, whose resignations were motivated by the impending operation of section 72 but chose to do so a few weeks earlier in order to allow replacement justices to commence at the beginning of the Court's term. Shadow007 (talk) 01:47, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Shadow007 its an interesting point that I will have a think about. If that approach were adopted, wouldn't it follow that every "retirement" before then would in fact be a resignation? The designation of retirement / resignation seems to me to be a bit random. I find it hard to accept that Rich's cessation of office aged 87 was anything but a retirement. Similarly Starke aged 79. On the other end of the scale, Gaudron, aged 60, would appear to be a resignation. More fundamentally are you aware of any authoritative list that deals with the issue ? Find bruce (talk) 02:22, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

@Find bruce: I am not aware of any source that definitively establishes the difference. There are two relevant time periods; first, prior to mandatory retirement and, second, after mandatory retirement. In relation to the first period, I think the difference comes down to the career the Justice had after leaving the Court. So Griffith held no substantial positions after leaving, therefore is said to have retired, whereas Isaacs became Governor-General and so is said to have resigned in order to take up that office. It appears that this has been very inconsistently applied. For example, Charles Powers is listed as resigning but there is nothing in his article to suggest he held any substantial positions after leaving the Court, therefore I think that is a retirement.

In relation to the second period, I think the difference is whether the Justice leaves the Court prior to the operation of section 72 and mandatory retirement. Leaving aside Gibbs, all Justices who served up until the day before their 70th birthday (Mason, Brennan, McHugh, Callinan, Gummow, Heydon, Hayne) would be retirements whereas the other judges that resigned before their 70th birthdays (Wilson, Deane, Dawson, Toohey, Gaudron, Kirby, Crennan, French) would be resignations. The article is inconsistent here too because Kirby and French are currently listed as retirements although previous versions of the article (which included an edit by me re French which was later changed) had both of these as resignations. Similarly, Gaudron was previously a resignation and then was edited to a retirement at some point. I have not tracked down all the relevant edits.

It might be that the column is rather pointless. For example, List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States does not contain such a column. It could perhaps be replaced by a "Notes" column where significant things such as whether the Justice died in office or resigned to take up another positions, like Governor-General, could be noted. Shadow007 (talk) 03:39, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

In the absence of any objection, I have taken the suggestion by Shadow007 & replaced the column with notes, covering those who resigned for notable reasons, Piddington, Isaacs & Evatt & those who died in office. Find bruce (talk) 07:38, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have also added that Stephen and Deane both resigned in order to be appointed Governor-General. Shadow007 (talk) 11:57, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking of replacing the current graphical timeline with something similar to below:

Any thoughts? Happy to change the colours. Bookscale (talk) 14:22, 1 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting Bookscale, that must have taken a fair bit of thought & effort. Like any graph, its a comprmise about what information you can show. I like that you get an instant view of the order in which judges were appointed & how long they were on the bench. To me it looks too busy. What is obvious from the graph on the article is who replaced who and when the seats were left unfilled. At the moment I am 2 minds whether it is an improvement. Find bruce (talk) 05:02, 2 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Find bruce - I took the idea from this (which is a featured list) and this (which is not). I can see your point about the busyness though - maybe a horizontal timeline in the style of the existing format might work better? Bookscale (talk) 10:54, 2 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm retiring from editing Wikipedia - the bullying I experienced a few months ago from a number of editors was the last straw. If anyone wants to edit my sandbox page which I was hoping to use as a replacement (and improve the article) (User:Bookscale/Sandbox/HCA) with an unfinished table, feel free to do so. Bookscale (talk) 04:09, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I had the page title moved back (after a user moved it earlier this month with no discussion) so "Justice" is spelt with a capital "J" - this is what is in the Australian Constitution, and is entirely consistent with the Court's style guide about how to address a member of the Court. Any further attempts to move the page should be the subject of discussion. Deus et lex (talk) 23:41, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A reminder to users tempted to change this page's title again - the current title with a capital J for Justice is correct. Don't change it again without discussion. Deus et lex (talk) 11:08, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And another reminder not to change the page without discussion. Deus et lex (talk) 06:43, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A formal discussion for permanently moving this to lowercase has been started. Woko Sapien (talk) 21:12, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to https://teknopedia.ac.id/w/index.php?title=Talk:List_of_justices_of_the_High_Court_of_Australia&diff=prev&oldid=1174498761 by Deus et lex:

I do not doubt it looks wrong to you. If you have spent a lot of time dealing with this subject, you are indeed a subject matter expert and the vast majority of sources you read capitalize the word justice. Most of those who have contributed here are not subject matter experts, but are to various degrees expert in Wikipedia style. Our objective is to help Wikipedia be consistent so that Wikipedia as a whole looks credible. One of the first big style issues I dealt with on Wikipedia was whether or not the common names of bird species (but not other animals) should be capitalized. I participated in developing WP:BIRDCON and it was highly fractious and some editors said they would stop working on Wikipedia if they couldn't capitalize like their bird books did. It may look wrong to you to use the capitalization we promote on Wikipedia, and if I were writing in the Australian justice system, I would follow AGLC style, but here we should use lower case.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:29, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Daxserver/SchreiberBike/Woko Sapiens, can I please ask that this discussion be allowed to continue? I feel that none of the points I have raised above have been adequately discussed and/or refuted to justify why the page title should have been changed. The fact other pages might have been is not an argument you can use elsewhere, e.g. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, so I'm not sure why that argument is endorsed in this particular instance. Wikipedia strives for accuracy and constructive editing, and I've tried to show that the legislative basis for the word "Justices" in the High Court usage being capitalised, and the common usage of the same word, supports my argument for an upper case title. I've tried to show good faith in writing these points and I don't feel I have had that shown back by having my arguments taken into account. An "our way or the highway" approach that Daxserver appears to have endorsed by closing this argument isn't a persuasive or justifiable reason when I've tried to show that there is a valid alternative for this page alone. Is there a place I can raise this elsewhere? I mean this in good faith, not as an attack on any editor - I'd appreciate some further opportunity to discuss this. Deus et lex (talk) 11:09, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS pertains more to the rationale for keeping or deleting existing articles based on individual merit (and certainly no one is arguing for this page to be deleted).

In contrast, MOS:JOBTITLES is part of Wikipedia's official style guide and all articles are expected to conform to it. But if you feel that strongly about it, my advice would be go to the talk page and make the case there for an exception to the rule. I know you said earlier that there ought to be some flexibility for Australian customs, so maybe go with that?

I'll be completely honest: the burden of proof for changing the style guide is pretty steep, so I'm not sure how successful your case would be. But stranger things have happened before, so it's worth a shot. Woko Sapien (talk) 18:18, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Deus et lex and Woko Sapien: I agree with what Woko Sapien wrote above. I'd suggest Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters as a possibly better forum to discuss the issue, but either would work. Thank you for continuing to discuss this. SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:01, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Deus et lex: Is there a basis for your recent change to capitalize justice in the article? If there's not a new consensus, I think that's a mistake. Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨  18:48, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, because it's the correct way of spelling it and I'm trying to be accurate. The alleged "conensus" makes no sense at all when the article is inaccurate. I'm still none the wiser where I am supposed to get this changed. Deus et lex (talk) 00:20, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Deus et lex: Respectfully, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, I think you are wrong. Wikipedia has a style and the manual says what is to be capitalized. Based on that, justices is not to be capitalized in this kind of list. There was a discussion and a decision was reached. We made suggestions above of places where this might be further discussed. To specifically try to reverse the decision above, you might try Wikipedia:Move review.

I understand that it looks wrong to you, but I think you are not judging it by the standards of Wikipedia. There are people working on making Wikipedia articles and lists consistent and that means changing capitalization to match the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Thank you, SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:28, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with SchreiberBike et al. MOS:JOBTITLES is unambiguous. The article was moved accordingly and its text edited carefully to reflect the MoS and consensus. There are many instances in Wikipedia articles where our guidelines conflict somewhat with external use, sometimes even with the authors' use for their works. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:12, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Both of these talk pages were suggested to you if you want the rule modified:

• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters
• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography

Again, successfully changing a rule is often easier said than done. But these talk pages would be the place to start. Woko Sapien (talk) 15:38, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• SchreiberBike and Woko Sapien, I'm really getting tired of the MOS being cited blindly. All you ever do is just cite the silly MOS and the supposed "standards of Wikipedia", but you have not put forward any genuine reason other than the MOS itself to justify why I'm wrong. Neither of you are Australian nor have you any idea about the proper usage of the word. Wikipedia prides itself on accuracy, so it's completely incongruous that there is a style guide that insists on the word being in a particular format where it's wrong. The term is "Justice", "justice" has another meaning and is a completely different word. At least can you please try to understand the issue here rather than blindly citing policy? Deus et lex (talk) 12:19, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I should also say - the obsession with miscapitalising this has really turned me off editing this page, even though I've done a lot to improve it. It's really just not fair that you come in after having contributed absolutely nothing to the content, and insist on the content being wrong. The obsession for inaccuracy turns editors away from editing. Have you thought about how that affects other editors? Deus et lex (talk) 12:28, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    @Deus et lex: You care about this topic and it shows. That is worth treasure. One of the first major issues I dealt with when I started at Wikipedia was the capitalization of the common names of birds. Bird names in bird books are capitalized, but the names of other species are not capitalized. Butterfly names are capitalized in butterfly books, but bird names and other species are not capitalized there. The editors who work on birds felt so strongly that bird common names should be capitalized, that some quit (or threatened to quit) Wikipedia when a decision was made to capitalize bird names the same way other species were capitalized. They believed that it was right to capitalize bird names and that Wikipedia was violating the right way of writing English.

    I hate to think that asking you to write in Wikipedia's style would make you stop writing about this topic. This topic is important to you and important to Wikipedia, and I hope that you will continue to share your knowledge and care with the world through Wikipedia. I think standardization in style across the encyclopedia adds credibility to the encyclopedia the same way that if I were writing for a court in Australia, I'd follow the Australian Guide to Legal Citation and if I did not follow it, I would be corrected or not considered serious about my work. What is right in one context may be wrong in another. SchreiberBike | ⌨  14:55, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    @Deus et lex: Obeying the silly MOS is a bit like obeying traffic signs; it's the rule. If one doesn't agree with the rule, one can petition to have it changed (twice now the relevant talk pages for this have been provided here). But as far as the argument that "Justices" is always used in Australian government spelling, I would point out that even the Australian Parliament uses lowercase when referring to the High Court justices. To my knowledge, the Australian Parliament is an Australian government institution, but what do I know? Woko Sapien (talk) 16:32, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]