Two thousand and seventeen began as a sad year – my first annus horribilis. Legal life went on as frenetically as ever, of course. My own health (a barrister’s most essential attribute) was still holding up – a precious inheritance from my parents, helped no doubt by all that tennis I played in my youth. The closest I have come to a heart attack was very recently, when I opened an email from a Sydney friend consoling me over a just-published sexual harassment allegation. ‘We will always support you, Geoffrey. You must be going through hell.’ I hadn’t been, until I read the email. My memory went into frantic reverse, scanning back to the sixties for ‘inappropriate behaviour’. It took some time to acquit myself, and only then did I think of the libel damages (Rebel Wilson had just won $4.5 million). Kathy, I was heartened to note, was disbelieving and quite outraged on my behalf, and the penny dropped with her first – ‘It’s a speed-dial error – this email was meant for Geoffrey Rush …’ So it was. (Much as I applaud ‘#MeToo’, I do have a lingering belief in the presumption of innocence, as explained by Mr Jaggers.) In 2017 Kathy and I became conscious of time’s winged chariot getting closer to its destination and amicably decided to uncouple, to see what late-onset freedom might bring. I had already taken a skinny dip in the fountain of youth, falling in love with (and, amazingly, being fallen in love by) a much (but not too much) younger professor of Law from Eastern Europe. Although latin lovers are not naturally suited to phlegmatic Australians, an affair of the heart provides the best protection against the calcification of its arteries. It certainly beats golf.
Endnotes
Introduction
1 Barrie Cassidy, ‘The RAAF trainee who crash-landed on a roof’, The Drum, ABC TV, 24 April 2015. Barrie brought my father’s uniform back for display in the Chiltern Athenaeum Museum; see Barrie Cassidy, ‘How an RAAF teenage trainee pilot crashed a Wirraway plane on Chiltern home and survived’, Back Roads, ABC TV, 27 September 2017.
1 Who Do I Think I Am?
1 Who Do You Think You Are? SBS TV, season 1, episode 3, August 2016.
2 Angelo Loukakis, Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing Your Family History, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2008.
3 B. Dettman and J. Stevens, Agnes the Secret Princess: An Australian Story, Newport, Sydney, 2015.
4 H. P. Lee and George Winterton, Australian Constitutional Landmarks, ‘The Race Power: A Constitutional Chimera’, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
2 My Parents’ War
1 Geoffrey Robertson, Dreaming Too Loud, chapter 12, ‘For a Tumut Schoolteacher, Blown up at Bapaume’, Vintage, Sydney, 2013. Bob’s remains lay undiscovered until 1931, when his skeleton was identified by an inscribed watch it was still wearing, a parting gift from his school kids. The watch is now on display at the Australian War Memorial.
2 After her death we discovered – from calls to the family home from charities for the poor – that for years my mother had been donating to them very generously.
3 It was produced by a syndicate formed by BHP, after its chief executive, Essington Lewis, visited Japan in 1934 and realised its government was preparing for war. Australian diplomats and politicians lacked his insight. See Geoffrey Blainey, The Story of Australia’s People, Penguin, Melbourne, 2016, p. 306.
4 The cause of the crash remains a mystery. The only official record describes it as on a ‘non-operational travel flight’, which makes no sense. By law, a court of inquiry should have been held, but there is no record of it in the RAAF archives, although they have kept inconsequential references such as telegrams to next of kin. If it has been weeded out, it’s probably because its findings were embarrassing to the RAAF. It may, however, still be in the 200 kilometres of shelves of war records yet to be catalogued, thanks to lack of interest (and money) from successive governments in retrieving Australia’s wartime history. This attitude disrespects our war dead, and their families, and allows rumours to abound. My father was told that the pilot had been instructed to use Heron Island for target practice, and my grandmother heard that an unqualified crew member had been allowed to take the controls.
5 ‘Lost the Plot’, 60 Minutes, Channel 9, 22 April 2007.
6 His brother was John Jackson, the heroic commander of 75 Squadron, shot down while dog-fighting Zeros over Port Moresby. See Robertson, Dreaming Too Loud, chapter 14, ‘44 Days’.
7 The poem, ‘High Flight’, was written by John Gillespie Magee, a young Anglo-American airman, a few weeks before his death in an aerial collision in Britain in 1941. I found a handwritten copy in a letter my father sent to his mother from the frontline in 1943, doubtless to console her if he were to suffer the same fate.
8 David Salter (dir.) and Geoffrey Robertson, 44 Days: 75 Squadron’s Defence of Port Moresby, Screen Australia for ABC TV, 1993.
4 Striving to Achieve
1 C. H. Rolph (ed.), The Trial of Lady Chatterley: Regina v. Penguin Books Limited, Penguin Books, London, 1990 (reissue).
5 Ming’s Kid Goes to Uni
1 Four Corners, ‘Great Economic Lecture’, ABC TV, April 1967.
6 Freedom Rides
1 I never dared to venture into this tiny space – the description is by Mary Gaudron, quoted in Pamela Burton, From Moree to Mabo: The Mary Gaudron Story, UWA Press, Perth, 2010, pp. 45–46.
2 G. Hawkins and N. Morris, The Honest Politician’s Guide to Crime Control, University of Chicago Press, Illinois, 1969.
3 Blackacre, Sydney University Law Society, Sydney, 1968, p. 14.
4 There had been some mild reform by the Matrimonial Causes Act introduced, against massive church opposition, by Garfield Barwick in 1959. Divorce was then possible after five years’ separation, but otherwise it was necessary to prove adultery or another marital offence.
5 Ken Inglis, The Stuart Case, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2002 (reissue).
6 ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’, Four Corners, ABC TV, August 1969.
7 Geoff Robertson and John Carrick, Australian Quarterly, June 1970, pp. 34 ff.
8 Peter Tobin died a few years later when a bomb planted by an anti-Castro group with CIA connections blew up the airline on which he was travelling to Cuba. The terrorists have been identified but have never been brought to justice – the CIA protects them still. Peter was a tireless and ingenious worker for human rights, and deserves to be better remembered.
9 It was incomprehensible, it turned out in 2017, to senators and MPs who had neglected to renounce their allegiance to other countries, as section 44(i) so anachronistically requires. Why, in this age of globalisation, of dual and triple citizenship, should Australians in a nation that boasts of its multi culturalism be disqualified from political life if they retain a notional link to another country where they were born or may have once worked? It means that dual citizens, as I am, could never stand for Federal Parliament, although this is a fact that some – including myself – might welcome.
7 The Queen and I
1 Felix Frankfurter Papers, 1921–49, box 4, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum, University of Illinois. See also Joseph P. Lash (ed.),From the Diaries of Felix Frankfurter, W. W. Norton, New York, 1974, pp. 196–97. Dixon admitted ‘with charming whimsy’ that his views might be seen as unpatriotic.
2 G. Robertson and J. Carrick (eds), Blackacre, Sydney University Law Society, 1970.
3 See Larry Writer, Pitched Battle: In the Frontline of the 1971 Springbok Tour of Australia, Scribe, Melbourne, 2016, pp. 56–70.
8 Must Rhodes Fall?
1 ‘Interview with the Warden of Wadham’, Cherwell, Oxford University Union, 1971.
2 Philip Ziegler, Legacy: Cecil Rhodes, the Rhodes Trust and Rhodes Scholarships, Yale University Press, Connecticut, 2008.
3 This scandal is encapsulated in a Guardian headline in October 2017, ‘Oxford accused of “social apartheid” over admissions – one in three colleges failed to admit black British A-Level students in 2015’, Guardian, 27 October 2017.
4 Stan Grant, ‘It is a damaging myth that Captain
Cook discovered Australia’, ABC Online, 23 August 2017.
5 Although South Australians seem to regard themselves as culturally superior because they had no convict forebears, actually their land at Adelaide was seized illegally in 1836 by a rapacious joint stock company, in breach of its direction from the King to respect Aboriginal occupation: see Robertson, Dreaming Too Loud, chapter 11, ‘Give Adelaide Back’.
6 Ziegler, Legacy, p. 299.
7 My detailed account of the Oz trial can be found in chapter 2, ‘The Trials of Oz’, The Justice Game, Vintage, London, 1998.
9 Down at the Old Bailey
1 See Robertson, chapter 12, ‘Come Up and See My Boggs’, The Justice Game.
2 Robertson, chapter 15, ‘UK Ltd’, The Justice Game.
3 Robertson, chapter 5, ‘Ferrets or Skunks? The ABC Trial’, The Justice Game, p. 104.
4 Alan King-Hamilton, And Nothing But the Truth: Autobiography, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1982.
5 See Robertson, chapter 6, ‘Gay News, the Angel’s Advocate’, The Justice Game. Also, Nicolas Walter, Blasphemy in Britain, Rationalist Press Association, London, 1977 and Gillian Hanscombe and Andrew Lumsden, Title Fight: The Battle for Gay News, Brilliance Books, London, 1983. The House of Lords case is reported as Whitehouse v Lemon and Gay News (1979) AC 617; the Salman Rushdie case is ex parte Chaudhury (1991). All ER 306.
6 Robertson, chapter 7, ‘The Romans in Britain’, The Justice Game.
7 See, for example, Guardian, ‘British Barrister Accused of Child Abuse Had Been Charged on Killing of Teen’, 3 February 2017, and at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/03/british-barrister-john-smyth-child-abuse-allegations-church-england-charged-zimbabwe-killing
10 Family and Friends
1 We had stumbled across Tennant’s ruined restaurant, which according to an obituary was ‘the only place in the world where you could find Princess Margaret and a member of Led Zeppelin eating bananas and Mars Bars sandwiches.’ ‘Lord Glenconner obituary’, Guardian, 29 August 2010.
2 Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals, ‘All in the Family’, ABC TV, 5 February 1989; see https://www.abccommercial.com/librarysales/program/geoffrey-robertsons-hypotheticals
3 Maria Stenmark, Mum’s the Word, North Rocks Press, New South Wales, 1986.
11 Hypotheticals
1 Robertson, chapter 20, ‘We Name the Guilty Men’ Dreaming Too Loud.
2 W v Egdell [1989] EWCA Civ 13 [1990] 2 WLR 471.
3 Talking Shop, ABC TV, 11 November 1987; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_K0ljE_6Y8
12 Spy-catching
1 For Turnbull’s account of the trial, see Malcolm Turnbull, The Spycatcher Trial, William Heinemann Australia, Richmond, 1988.
2 Giles Gordon, Aren’t We Due a Royalty Statement?, Chatto & Windus, London, 1993, pp. 304–5.
3 There are many different versions of the false story of Malcolm killing the cat. Richard Ackland, ‘Love’s Letter Lost’, Crikey, 18 June 2009; see https://www.crikey.com.au/2009/06/18/loves-letter-lost-malcolm-turnbulls-dead-cat-scrawl-unearthed/
4 Mohamed, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs (No 2) [2010] EWCA Civ 158.
5 See Robertson, Dreaming Too Loud, pp. 405–6, p. 409.
13 Hard Cases
1 Geoffrey Robertson, Reluctant Judas, Temple Smith, London, 1976.
2 R v McCann and others (1991) 92 Cr App R 239.
3 Clive Borrell, ‘Yard Inquiry into Agent Provocateur Allegations’, Sunday Times, 2 August 1976. See also R v Ameer and Lucas CCC [1977], Criminal Law Review 104, and Geoffrey Robertson, ‘Entrapment Evidence: Manna from Heaven, or Fruit of the Poisoned Tree?’, Criminal Law Review 805, 1994.
14 In the Privy
1 Death Penalty Information Center, Washington DC; https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/
2 De Freitas v Benny [1976] AC 239. The best retrospective on Michael de Freitas is Edward Pilkington, ‘The Other Brother X’, Guardian, 2 March 1993.
3 Pratt & Morgan v the Attorney-General for Jamaica [1992] UKPC 1 [1994] 2 AC 1.
4 Attorney General of Trinidad v Phillip and Others [1994] UKPC 33.
5 Attorney General of Trinidad v Phillip, 1995, 1 AC 396 (PC).
6 Teo Soh Lung v Minister for Home Affairs [1989] 1 S.L.R.(R.) 461, H.C.
7 Geoffrey Robertson, ‘Criminal Justice’, Spectator, 22 June 2002.
15 Doughty Street Chambers
1 Geoffrey Robertson, The Tyrannicide Brief, Vintage, London, 2006
2 R v Ahluwalia (1993) 96 Cr App R 133.
3 More detail about the case is in chapter 17, ‘Diana in the Dock: Does Privacy Matter?’, The Justice Game.
4 See Robert Brown v Executors of the Estates of HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother and of HRH the Princess Margaret [2007] EWHC 1607 (Fam) and [2008] EWCA Civ 56, and Brown v Information Commissioner and the Attorney-General [2016] EQCA Civ 1193.
5 See Rusbridger & Toynbee v Attorney-General [2003] UKHL 38 (House of Lords) and [2002] EWCA Civ 397 (Court of Appeal).
6 Tyson did fight Lewis for the title in 2002, but was knocked out in the eighth round. The celebrity audience included Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Hugh Hefner, Michael Jordan, Ben Affleck, Halle Berry and Morgan Freeman, as well as Donald Trump and Alec Baldwin.
7 Perinçek v Switzerland, no.27510/08, ECHR 2015.
16 Freedom of Speech
1 Berezovsky v Forbes [2000] 1 WLR 1004.
2 Geoffrey Robertson, Media Law, Sweet & Maxwell Ltd, London, 2007.
3 X Ltd. V Morgan-Grampian (Publishers) Ltd. [1991] 1 AC 1.
4 Goodwin v United Kingdom [1996] 22 EHRR 123.
5 Geoffrey Robertson, ‘Protecting Sources is a Legal and Moral Duty,’ The Times, 15 February 8, 2012.
6 Dow Jones & Co. Inc. v Gutnick [2002] 210 CLR 575.
7 Allan Kozinn, ‘Meditation on the Man Who Saved the Beatles’, New York Times, 7 February 2008.
8 Attorney General v New Statesman and National Publishing Company Ltd. [1981] QB 1.
9 AG v Able [1984] 1 All ER 277.
10 We were, however, able to protect our sources – see Gaddafiv Telegraph Group Ltd (No.1) 2000 EMLR 431.
11 Jameel v Wall Street Journal Europe SPRL (no. 3) 2006 HKHL 44.
17 Struggling for Global Justice
1 See Robertson, chapter 10, ‘Show Trials’, The Justice Game.
2 Hauschildt v Denmark, Application No. 10486/83 Series A, No 154, European Court of Human Rights (1990) 12 EHRR 266.
3 NS v SSHD (C-411/10), ECJ, 21 December 2011.
4 Geoffrey Robertson, ‘The Case for Lula’, Foreign Affairs, 19 April 2017.
5 See Robertson, chapter 11, ‘Fantasy Island’, The Justice Game, and Louis Blom-Cooper, Guns to Antigua, Duckworth, London, 1991.
6 Republic of Fiji v Prasad [2001], Melbourne.
7 Memorandum from the FCO Eastern Department to Minister Joyce Quin and others, 12 April 1999. See An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians?, Biteback Publishing, London, 2014, pp. 162–63.
18 The World’s Fight
1 The full story is told in Geoffrey Robertson, ‘The Pinochet Precedent’, Crimes Against Humanity, Penguin/New Press, London, 2012, pp. 435–45.
2 Geoffrey Robertson, ‘Robin Vincent obituary’, Guardian, 23 June 2011.
3 Geoffrey Robertson, Mullahs Without Mercy: Human Rights and Nuclear Weapons, Random House, Sydney 2012.
4 Geoffrey Robertson, The Case of the Pope, Penguin Special, 2010.
5 Geoffrey Robertson, ‘Put the pope in the dock’, Guardian, 2 April 2010.
6 Geoffrey Robertson, ‘Report on the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh’, International Forum for Democracy and Human Rights, 2015.
7 Bdnews24.com, ‘Bangladesh to act against British lawyer Robertson for derogatory remarks on 1971 war veterans’, 6 May 2015; http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2015/05/06/bangladesh-to-act-against-british-lawyer-robertson-for-derogatory-remarks-on-1971-war-veterans
8 Ge
offrey Robertson, ‘Report on the Impeachment of Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice’, Bar Human Rights Committee, 2013.
9 Geoffrey Robertson, ‘Assad Should Face International Justice’, Independent, 12 May 2011.
Index of Searchable Terms
9/11
44 Days
60 Minutes
75 Squadron
1835 potato famine
1836 New South Wales Squatting Act
1967 referendum
1970 South African rugby tour
2003 Bush-Blair invasion of Iraq
‘#MeToo’
Abbas, Mahmoud
Abbott, Todd
Abbott, Tony
ABC
Abdel-Magied, Yassmin
Abeles, Sir Peter
Aboriginals, treatment of
abortion
accent
Adams, Douglas
Adams, Michael
Adelaide News
advocacy styles
African human rights abuses
African travels
The Age
Ahluwalia, Kiranjit
Al-Fayed, Mohamed
Al Qaeda
Albert, Prince
Alfred, Prince
Allende, Salvador
Allens
‘Alphabet Soup’ case
America’s First Amendment
American Flange v Rheem Australia
American Lawyer
Amnesty International
Anarchist Trial
ancestry
Anderson, Clive
Anderson, Jim
Anderson, John
Anguilla
Annan, Kofi
Antigua
Anzac Day
apartheid
Archer, Jeffrey
Archer, Robyn
Arlott, John
Armenia
Arms-to-Iraq affair
Armstrong, David
Armstrong, Sir Robert
Rather His Own Man Page 48
