In the latest edition of Legal Ethics, Dr Suzanne Le Mire and PLPRU Deputy Director Dr Gabrielle Appleby have provided a comment on the current state of judicial regulation in Australia.

While it might be seen as a progressive jurisdiction, Australia has struggled to match reforms of the regulation of judges in place in other common law countries. Australia’s few attempts to achieve reform in this area (where they have stuck) have tended to adopt a highly conservative approach, thus avoiding an unsightly ‘showdown’ between the judiciary and the executive. Unfortunately, if this has been an attempt to avoid controversy, it has not been successful. While public confidence in individual judges is high, a series of events involving individual judges have emerged into the public space and have exposed the existing framework of judicial regulation as inadequate.

Read the full comment here.