The colony's Anglo-Masonic set up legal system, is (deliberately) against the 'serfs' or plebs or general population, but it helps those within the brotherhood.
Corruption is rife within all the states and territories of this nation, where upon the setup of this colony, the original so called police force was not made up of of 'honourable' persons, but rather criminals.
Over the generations it has become a well oiled machine of corruption, that is difficult to the Joe (Below) Average to comprehend, just the way the authorities want it to be.
One of the most important aspects of today's society is that the mainstream media is allowed to report what the so called authorities allow them to put into print.
What The Australian is allowed to inform the masses is the following:
It’s
done mostly in secret, using highly subjective and uncertain criteria,
and the end result is shrouded in darkness. Even after a finding is made
against a judge, the law says the commission will not make that finding
public. It is a criminal offence for anyone at the Judicial Commission
to utter a word about these findings. This is a very bad law.
It’s
only when a finding against a judge is referred to what is called the
conduct division of the commission that a sliver of sunlight shines on
the commission’s work.
This means that there
is a category of findings against sitting judges by the commission that
we will never know about. This secrecy means we can’t know about a
judge’s alleged misbehaviour on the bench, as decided by the commission.
It also means we can’t judge the judges for their findings against
other judges – findings that are set in stone, leaving a secret but
permanent black mark against a sitting judge.
When
a finding is made against a judge, even if it is not referred up to the
conduct division, there are often consequences for the sitting judge.
Anywhere from a grovelling apology to the head of their court to a stint
in re-education camp. Or both, and more. We kid you not. And all of
this happens far away from the public eye.
This
secrecy invites serious questions, starting with: What does the NSW
Judicial Commission have to hide? Could it be that this body is using
its position as apex judicial predator to impose some form of ideological purity on judges?
We are also entitled to ask about those who make the complaint that
kicks off these findings. The relevant legislation allows any person to
make a complaint. It doesn’t have to be a party to the court matter but
can be any officious bystander – even someone who has a grudge against a
judge or is acting as an ideological vigilante. Many complaints are
tossed out, but not all of them.
On that note, this is also a story about how apprehended violence orders are not always used for their intended purpose.
Protecting women (and men) from the evil scourge of domestic violence should be one of society’s highest priorities.
It’s why there is a system in place for police and the courts,
depending on the state or territory, to issue AVOs. It’s why we have new
laws against coercive control that police and the courts take very
seriously.
NSW chief prosecutor Sally Dowling. Picture: John Feder/The Australian
Two things can be true at once. Despite the
important purpose of AVOs and other similar orders, Inquirer has been
told about rising concerns that AVOs are being used not as a form of
protection but as something entirely different – and improper. Lawyers
who work in family law have told Inquirer that it is not uncommon for
women to use applications for AVOs as strategic tools to gain legal
advantage in messy family law disputes.
This
means there is a category of victims that get very little attention.
Anecdotal evidence suggests they are mostly men whose liberties and
rights are restricted when a bogus allegation of apprehended violence
leads to an AVO.
Most concerning, these
victims are prevented from seeing their children because of the lie.
This sets off other lasting consequences for families. Once a father has
been successfully prevented from seeing their children for a period,
family law will often favour the status quo when deciding parenting
orders, meaning the mother benefits permanently even if the basis for
the AVO was false. There is also a provision in the Family Law Act that
means AVOs and similar orders are taken into account in property
settlements.
The use of AVOs for legal
advantage is not uncommon because there are no penalties, in reality,
for women who lie about being in fear of violence. Worse, there are
concerns that some lawyers are advising their female clients to apply
for an AVO with no evidence of apprehended violence simply to gain legal
advantage.
These two stories are troubling in their own right. When they collided last year, the result was even more disturbing.
District Court judge Peter Whitford, who have accused NSW chief
prosecutor Sally Dowling of running meritless rape cases over the past
18 months.
In a NSW local court last year, a couple whose
relationship ended several months earlier were fighting over an interim
AVO against the husband, the father of the couple’s two small children.
Before the court case, the couple had agreed to a shared parenting
arrangement. That ended soon after the woman applied for an AVO. Police
issued an interim AVO to protect the woman and the children.
When
the matter came to court last year, local court judge Roger Clisdell
had a formal application in front of him that said the woman “attended …
police station to report a history of coercive control and other
behaviours by the defendant with an escalation in behaviour since their
separation … The matter remains with police and is pending
investigation.”
The identity of both
parties are on the court record but Inquirer has chosen not to name
them. This story is about a system open to abuse.
There
were suggestions in court that the mother had agreed to consent to the
children being removed from the AVO so the father could see the children
according to the couple’s shared custody arrangement. But she changed
her mind, opposing any variation to the AVO to stop the father seeing
his children. The question for Judge Clisdell was this: What evidence
was there to warrant a variation to the AVO so that the father could see
his two young kids?
According to the
transcript, the policeman in court appearing on behalf of the mother,
acknowledged that the AVO application provided “quite scant detail”.
Running
to just 8½ lines, the application claiming “a history of coercive
control” said the father “has begun to contact her employer to
negatively impact her mental and financial wellbeing”.
“She is extremely fearful of retribution and a further escalation in behaviour for reporting the incident to police.”
Before
deciding the matter, Judge Clisdell said: “I can think why (the
children) are on the order (for an interim AVO), it’s called a tactical
approach in family law matters … It’s not uncommon, and I’ve been saying
it for most of the time I’ve been on the bench, which is coming up for
18 years now, that tactical AVOs were very common when I practised in
family law back in the 1980s, 90s and early 2000s, and this has all the
hallmarks on what’s alleged. They’ve separated, they’ve got (shared)
custody and suddenly, she starts saying, ‘Oh, there’s coercive control
and l want the children not to go near him’.”
According
to the transcript, the judge also said the court would give the mother
“the opportunity of saying what the urgency is in relation to the
children”.
The transcript does not show what
else the judge apparently said. Inquirer has been told by a person who
was in the local court that day that Judge Clisdell added caveats about
the specific case he was hearing in addition to his general observation
about the misuse of AVOs.
The person recalls the judge saying “I might be wrong” and “there may be something I don’t know about and we’ll find out”.
The
woman gave evidence later that day. She offered little detail about her
fears of psychological harm. Importantly, when asked, she said: “I have
no fears of physical harm.”
The judge
decided there was not enough evidence to stop the father seeing the
children. “These are always difficult situations,” Judge Clisdell said.
Referring to the shared custody, he said: “I have got to somehow restore
that at this stage because there is no physical threat to the children
and though there is some concern about psychological harm, these
(interim) orders are primarily designed to provide protection from
violence.”
NSW Chief Justice Andrew Bell. Picture: John Feder/The Australian
A person in court that day – not one of the
parties – complained to the NSW Judicial Commission about Judge
Clisdell’s comments about tactical AVOs. Inquirer understands that in
April this year the commission upheld that complaint, although it did
not think the matter warranted a referral to the conduct division.
Still,
Inquirer has been told it is common for the commission to demand
something akin to re-education camp for judges they reprimand, overseen
by the relevant head of jurisdiction.
Was
this Judge Clisdell’s fate? Neither he nor the Chief Judge of the Local
Court of NSW, Michael Allen, or the NSW Judicial Commission will say. In
fact, each of them declined to answer any of Inquirer’s questions. So
much for open justice when it comes to the secretive work of the NSW
Judicial Commission.
Interestingly, when the
dispute about the AVO returned to the local court this year, police
withdrew the AVO. It is not unreasonable to wonder whether that was done
for lack of evidence once the investigation had been completed.
Nor
is it unreasonable to ask the follow-up question: Was Judge Clisdell
correct to point out that AVOs are sometimes used for tactical reasons?
It’s
a pity the NSW Judicial Commission, a body headed by NSW Supreme Court
Chief Justice Andrew Bell, was so keen to shoot the messenger that it
didn’t bother to wait for the final outcome of the AVO.
Canberra-based Anthony Williamson SC regularly appears in complex AVO
matters in NSW. Picture: Keegan Carroll / The Canberra Times
Canberra-based Anthony Williamson SC regularly
appears in complex AVO matters in NSW and in similar matters involving
their equivalent, called family violence orders, in the ACT. He says
AVOs and FVOs are important tools in preventing harm and violence
against vulnerable people.
“However, the
critical question is not whether AVOs/FVOs should be available; rather,
the question is whether the current system has struck the correct
balance, and whether it currently causes too much collateral damage to
innocent parties in the pursuit of protecting those who genuinely need
protection.”
The respected barrister says
most legal practitioners who work in this area will readily acknowledge
that “tactical AVOs/FVOs are commonly sought to advance a litigant’s
case in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia”.
“Abuse
of the system is widespread,” Williamson tells Inquirer. He says most
lawyers “muse over how AVOs/FVOs are dished out by the courts like
confetti”.
According to the NSW Bureau of
Crime Statistics and Research, 67,319 apprehended domestic violence
orders were made from July 2023 to June 2024, a 40 per cent increase
from the 48,241 orders made from July 2019 to June 2020.
These
orders are critical tools to protect those who fear domestic violence,
but Williamson says an interim AVO or FVO can be obtained on the most
slender evidentiary basis.
“The rules of
evidence are often not applied to such proceedings, meaning all manner
of untested hearsay and opinion evidence can be admitted against a
respondent … resulting in parents having their children taken from them,
or people being kicked out of the home they own with nowhere else to
go, without having an opportunity to first be heard in court.”
Williamson
has seen how the “status quo” principle in the family law system means
that the courts are slow to disrupt existing child custody arrangements,
which are already in place when a case first comes before it. “By
obtaining an interim AVO/FVO which prohibits one parent from having
contact with their children, the other parent automatically has a head
start in the (family law) litigation.”
‘Even
when police officers privately believe the complainant may be
untruthful or embellishing, they are often too scared to call out this
behaviour … They then proceed with an AVO application or lay criminal
charges anyway’
The top silk says
there is an “unfortunate misunderstanding” among police, local court
judges and magistrates about what coercive control is and is not.
“There
is substantial guidance from superior courts that the mere fact of
there being arguments or disagreements, even spirited ones, is not
coercive control.”
Yet Williamson says AVOs and FVOs are frequently made on this misconceived basis alone.
“Even
when police officers privately believe the complainant may be
untruthful or embellishing, they are often too scared to call out this
behaviour, afraid of being criticised as having antiquated attitudes to
domestic violence. They then proceed with an AVO application or lay
criminal charges anyway.
“I have been
involved in both AVO/FVO and criminal cases where the complainant has
positively been proved to have made false allegations, lied to the
police or court, and perverted the course of justice, only for police to
refuse to take any action.”
Williamson says
authorities don’t act because they argue “it sends the wrong message”
to real victims and might have a chilling effect on them coming forward.
Williamson disagrees.
“Genuine victims who are telling the truth have nothing to fear in coming forward,” he says.
“One
can be committed to protecting people from domestic violence while at
the same time insist on sufficiently cogent evidence in any given case
before profoundly life-changing orders are made.”
Williamson
says the problems are exacerbated by the fact even the most obviously
innocent respondent to an AVO/FVO will usually have to pay tens of
thousands of dollars to defend the matter in court and is unlikely to
recover their real costs.
Williamson, who
has appeared before Judge Clisdell, says the local court judge, who has
been on the bench for more than 18 years, is well regarded by legal
practitioners.
“He is well known for his
direct and no-nonsense approach. He has an ability to see through all
the fluff and white noise in a matter and quickly identify what the real
issues are.”
The NSW Judicial Commission
took a different view when Judge Clisdell exposed to the public what
lawyers and other judges know: that AVOs are commonly used for tactical
advantage in family law matters.
The
commission’s secret censure of Judge Clisdell continues a disturbing
practice where this body uses its wide and vague statutory powers, along
with its secrecy provisions, to try to enforce a form of ideological
uniformity on judges.
Though the numbers of
these secret censures are not high, the message to other judges in the
tight legal industry is unmistakeable, and the pattern equally clear.
District Court judge Robert Newlinds was
castigated by the commission after he called for “lazy and perhaps
politically expedient” referrals of baseless rape accusations to the
court to stop. Judge Newlinds was taken off criminal cases, with the
commission holding that he should return only after a stint of
counselling and when chief judge of the District Court Sarah Huggett
“considers it appropriate to do so”.
Newlinds
was one of five judges, including District Court judge Peter Whitford,
who have accused NSW chief prosecutor Sally Dowling of running meritless
rape cases over the past 18 months. After Dowling complained, Judge
Whitford incurred the wrath of the Judicial Commission too.
Last
month, Federal Court judge Ian Jackman publicly expressed concerns
about this pattern. “It saddens me that the Judicial Commission appears
to have been used as a way of enforcing uniformity of opinions when the
opinion, which was being expressed by the judge … seemed to me an
entirely justifiable opinion to hold,” Justice Jackman told the Rule of
Law Institute annual dinner. The judge was talking about what happened
to Judge Newlinds and Judge Whitford. We can now add Judge Clisdell to
the targets of a doctrinaire Judicial Commission.
While
its procedural principles recall historical forerunners such as the
Star Chamber, a closer precedent for the Judicial Commission may be the
Spanish Inquisition.
The commission looks
for all the world like a modern Tomas de Torquemada forcing ideological
orthodoxy on judges who are simply trying to warn the public about legal
injustices.
This is a story about how a group of lawyers, most of them judges, who sit on the Judicial Commission of NSW hold other judges to account.