Judges

Earlier this year Tony Abbott warned us that we should be wary of taking seriously those comments he makes about policy when speaking off the cuff. Presumably, his suggestion in a community forum this week that Australia might consider moving to elect its judges falls into this category. We can only hope that is the case. 

Anxiety over perceived leniency in criminal sentencing is never too far from the surface of public discussion and as a result we might expect that politicians have given the issue some thought before they express an opinion.

Certainly it is hard to credit that a political figure as senior as Mr Abbott would be caught off guard when quizzed about judges, sentencing and community values, as he was at the Brisbane forum. 

What exactly did the Leader of the Opposition say? “I never want lightly to change our existing systems, but I’ve got to say if we don’t get a better sense of the punishment fitting the crime, this is almost inevitable. If judges don’t treat this kind of thing appropriately, sooner or later, we will do something that we’ve never done in this country. We will elect judges. And we will elect judges that will better reflect want we think is our sense of anger at this kind of thing.”

Continue reading "Electing judges would totally undermine our legal system" »