“Every clique is a refuge for incompetence. It fosters corruption and disloyalty, it begets cowardice, and consequently is a burden upon and a drawback to the progress of the country. Its instincts and actions are those of the pack.”– Soong May Ling
HOW HEYDON GOT THROUGH THE NET TO REDEEM HIMSELF
The revelation that Dyson Heydon has been granted unfettered access to the resources of the NSW Law Society to research, publish, and publicize his book is a matter of grave concern. This incident stands as stark evidence of entrenched corruption within the legal profession and its peak bodies across New South Wales, Queensland, and in fact on closer examination the entirety of the legal and justice system in Australia. Yet the peak professional body for lawyers, the New South Wales Law Society has contemptuously and with scant regard for the law and its own rules allowed Heydon, who disgraced himself, the legal profession and the High Court of Australia to celebrate himself with publishing a book with their assistancec and consent.
The publication of Heydon’s book, aided and abbetted by the New South Wales Law Society, flies in the face of the law and the dignity of the High Court of Australia, whilst government and the legal profession remain mute bystanders to a brazen breach of the rules of the legal profession, the Society and the law.
These organizations, ostensibly self-governing, operate as self-serving entities, dominated by members and proxies of the most powerful legal firms, alongside the privileged offspring of judges, former judges, and politicians—products of elite private schools.
A HELPING HAND FROM THE WILFULLY BLIND
Solicitors and barristers outside this insulated clique face relentless exclusion and disproportionate punishment for minor infractions. Meanwhile, those within the circle—Heydon Dyson, his legal advisor Francis Douglas KC, and Douglas’s associates David Keane KC, Stephen Colditz, James Nicholas Conomos (solicitor), and the discredited liquidator William Cotter— have all committed far graver offenses with impunity. Shielded by former Chief Justice of Queensland Katherine Holmes J, this group misappropriated over $20,000,000, flouting both a court order and the law. Holmes, despite clear evidence of their misconduct, evaded accountability, delegating oversight to a dubious liquidator who was easily manipulated by the very individuals responsible for the theft.
Adding insult to injury, the Law Societies of New South Wales and Queensland and the Legal Services Commissioners of each othese states on reviewing the evidence of criminality, professional misconduct, blackmail, threats and the offence of misleading the courts by each of these individuals, gave them each a clean bill of health by ignorig the evidence of criminality against each of them.
GOVERNMENTS IN A FIGHT AGAINST THE MENACE OF GROWING CRIME?
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, oversight of the judicial branch and the legal profession has all but vanished. Governments, rather than confronting this erosion of justice at society’s apex, fixate on the low-hanging fruit: the crimes of the socially displaced, the economically disadvantaged, and the least educated. As the adage goes, a fish rots from the head—and the stench of corruption at the top is unmistakable.
The rise of white-collar crime, fueled by the Big Four accounting firms and their counterparts in sprawling legal practices, threatens Australia’s economic and social fabric. These institutions launder the illicit profits of bikie gangs, the Mafia, rogue unions, and foreign criminal syndicates, driving the decline of foreign investment, the surge in homelessness, and the proliferation of crime nationwide. Justice, it seems, is a privilege reserved for the powerful. It is all about processes and not outcomes as it ought to be.
The government must act decisively. An immediate Royal Commission of Inquiry, armed with the broadest possible terms of reference, is essential to dismantle this web of corruption. Delay only emboldens those who profit from lawlessness, proving time and again that, for those at the summit, crime does indeed pay. The time for accountability is now or the cult of vigilante justice will emerge to override a constitutionally mandated system of courts and lawyers.
Authored by: Jennifer Siu Lin