AUSTRALIA
Pearls and Irritation (blog)
March 11, 2020
The Full Bench of the High Court sitting in Canberra this week is listed to hear the Appeal in M112/19 Pell and The Queen on Wednesday 11th March.
When the Pell ‘appeal against conviction’ pursuant to S. 276 (1) (a) of the Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (Vic) lost 2:1 in the Supreme Court of Victoria: Court of Appeal in August 2019, much comment was devoted to observations that the determining majority, comprising Chief Justice Ferguson and Court of Appeal President Maxwell, were not lawyers with long, specific expertise in Criminal Law. Busy retired and recalled Appeal Justice Mark Weinberg, by contrast, was expert in the field. Such comment seemed aimed at inducing a general preference for the Weinberg position, set-out in a remarkably long dissenting judgement, detailing in embarrassing application just what was wrong with the Crown case against George Pell – in the learned Appeal Judge’s opinion.
There was a feeling amongst those who took the trouble to digest the Weinberg dissent that he had set-up a metaphorical Catherine Wheel and let fly. He had done the Applicant-Pleaders’ job for them. So it appeared, at least to the untutored eye, when the Appeal documents were filed in the High Court and detailed submissions seemed gratifyingly-consistent with the Weinberg approach.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.