The calendar on the website said that the High Court was sitting today but because of Easter, they take an extra day. They sit two weeks each month. We sat in Court 1, the largest one with the greatest visitor capacity. There was a school group there that the curator spoke to directly, but we were asked to participate as well. They explained briefly how the different courts were used and what sort of cases are brought here such as the cigarette companies being told by the government to use plain packaging with disgusting pictures of what cancer does to you. They can only hear cases that the Constitution has a bearing, so plaintiffs have to devise an argument that relates to the Constitution. The cigarette companies said the Government had taken away their property – their logos. Not true the court ruled, you still have them, just not on your packaging.
The High Court was interesting and we will try and get back there when they are in session. Court 2 is being used this week. There are three courts – court 3 has 1 judge, court 2 has 3-5 and court 1, the highest has 7. There are always an odd number of Judges so there is never a hung decision. All the judges have assistants behind them. In front of them are the Barristers or Kings Counsels, then the Solicitors. The Solicitor engages the Barrister. The Barrister writes a submission that is lodged beforehand and then only has 20 minutes to plead their case before answering questions from each judge. Each judge then has to write up their decision which can take months as they have many other cases to deliberate on as well. As it is very expensive to have a barrister come all the way from places such as Perth for 20 mins, they may use video-link. We found some one-hour free parking out the front, if you park in the underground carpark it is $3.50 an hour. If the court is in session you would need a 2-3 hours here, and then there are The Portrait and National Galleries, either side of the High Court to visit as well.
After checking the website we arrived at the High Court at 10am but the proceedings were already in progress. Something happens to me when I’m in a room where everyone has to be silent. It must be a nervous thing. My throat starts tickling and I have to cough. Then when I try to suppress it; my eyes start watering. It’s awful and it happened when I went into the High Court live session. I think it’s some form of anxiety. Apparently, it can be caused by shallow breathing.
The first Barrister was stating his case about a juror that had researched online the penalty for whatever illegal act the plaintiff had done and told the other jurors, when they had been told explicitly by the Judge not to. The plaintiff’s counsel was appealing the guilty decision based on the fact that basically something had happened that shouldn’t have; and he wanted a mistrial. The other counsel was saying that what the juror researched would not have changed the verdict. The Judges questioned or really grilled, both counsels about their arguments.
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