A very merry Networking Season

At this time of year the unenlightened enjoy their Christmas parties — proof in and of itself that such culturally insensitive brutes could never serve on the bench, at least not in Victoria. Down here, the wigs-and-gowns crowd prefers to celebrate not the birth of the alleged Messiah but the opportunity to trade business cards with members of the working press. Above is the invitation to this year’s bash from judges Peter Kidd and Wendy Wilmoth.

No doubt it will be a jolly affair and — who knows? — perhaps emboldened by the grape and social proximity to minds far greater than their own, one of the imbibing reporters might venture a question about the extraordinary number of suppression orders which, while they do not stop justice being done, certainly stop the public whose taxes underwrite the court system from seeing it done. Cases, for example, like this one.

Follow the link below to learn more of judges’ inclination to conduct the business of justice behind closed doors — and the more than 200 pieces of the legislation that allow them to do so.

— roger franklin

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