Talk:List of justices of the High Court of Australia

message: 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)
replies: text: And Barton to Deakin.
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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)

text: What is difficult about it? Ambi 02:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Untitled

message: The title uses "Judge", the text uses "Justices" - which one should we use? enochlau (talk) 11:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Justice vs Judge 

message: 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)
thread_title:  High schools 

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

text: 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)
thread_title:  Retired-Resigned 

message: I have removed this section as it was unsourced. JRG 13:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: High Court appearances by Justices as barristers

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  Faulty Link in Composition of the High Court for Sir Alan Taylor 

message: So Michael Kirby retires on 2nd February according to many sources (including his wiki page) but this article  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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: The judgments in question were handed down on the afternoon of the 2nd: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/recent.html.203.17.236.101 (talk) 02:35, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Retirement date 

message: 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)
thread_title: Almae matres

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Number of High Court judges 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Merger Discussion

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Replacement graphical timeline 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: And another reminder not to change the page without discussion. Deus et lex (talk) 06:43, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: A formal discussion for permanently moving this to lowercase has been started. Woko Sapien (talk) 21:12, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Justice