![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/fd58f64f00e997ac513d51f605a335c78b3c4a995e35adf5e218e1a91ebc1723.png\")
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n A High Court judge has been accused of launching a veiled attack on a fellow justice in a speech slamming those he says want to stack courts with conservatives to achieve political ends.<\/p>\n High Court Justice Robert Beech-Jones was appointed to the bench in 2023 by former Labor Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. In a speech described as \u201cdynamite\u201d<\/a> by one prominent barrister, he took aim at a group of constitutionally conservative lawyers and former judges known as the Samuel Griffith Society of Australia.<\/p>\n One of his fellow judges, Justice Simon Steward, addressed the society\u2019s annual conference three times, and the society supported his candidacy<\/a> on the basis that he was unlikely to read too much into the Constitution. Steward was appointed in 2020 by Liberal attorney-general Christian Porter.<\/p>\n According to Beech-Jones, the historical figure Samuel Griffith, a former Queensland premier and High Court chief justice, had in life been \u201cMarx adjacent\u201d in his beliefs, but the conservative society had \u201cculturally appropriated\u201d his name for ideological and political ends.<\/p>\n The society is led by conservative legal figures including former High Court judge Ian Callinan and barrister Allan Myers<\/a>. It opposes what it calls \u201cjudicial activism\u201d, including reading rights into the Australian Constitution, such as the implied right to freedom of political communication.<\/p>\n Beech-Jones said in the speech the society\u2019s members wanted to import \u201cUS-style court stacking\u201d to Australia to promote conservatives and \u201cconstitutional originalists\u201d to the bench.<\/p>\n Barristers approached by this masthead declined to comment on the record about a serving High Court judge, but one said, \u201cI thought the speech was dynamite\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI read it and thought he must assume no one is listening. It was given in Townsville, and it seemed to me he just wanted to get it off his chest,\u201d the senior barrister said.<\/p>\n Asked on ABC Radio about the speech and whether it was Beech-Jones\u2019 informal job application for the position of chief justice of the High Court, which becomes vacant in 2028, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland declined to comment.<\/p>\n Beech-Jones said he had \u201cno comment on the matter\u201d, and Michael Izzo, the president of the Australian Bar Association, did not return calls.<\/p>\n Speaking to The Australian, Myers, the president of the Samuel Griffith Society, told Beech-Jones to \u201cstay out of politics and stick to the job of deciding cases according to law\u201d.<\/p>\n In the speech, Beech-Jones outlined the beliefs and practices of Griffith, then decried the use of his name by the society.<\/p>\n Beech-Jones said he had found a \u201ctheme, bordering on obsession\u201d in the society\u2019s papers opposing the High Court\u2019s landmark Mabo decision of 1992.<\/p>\n \u201cOn my count, from 1992 to 2002 the society received and published at least 33 papers attacking or criticising Mabo or what followed, such as the Native Title Act,\u201d Beech-Jones said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe point is not that judicial decisions cannot be criticised; it\u2019s the tenor, tone and uniform direction of these criticisms that is telling. One of the papers compared [the] Mabo [judgment] to a disease.\u201d<\/p>\n The focus of Beech-Jones\u2019 critique, though, was the society\u2019s alleged intention of pushing for \u201cspecifically the form of originalism practised in the United States which contends that the Constitution should be strictly interpreted according to the original intentions of the Constitution\u2019s framers\u201d.<\/p>\n So successful had proponents of this theory been in the US, he said, that courts had made a series of appalling decisions on gun laws, for example.<\/p>\n \u201cOnly a fool would think this was not the intended outcome of a sustained politicised and political process of stacking courts with supine judges,\u201d he told his audience.<\/p>\n \u201cOrdinarily, all this would be none of my business, but these methods are being advocated for in Australia. This has made it my business, and it has made it your business as custodians of the law. We are all interested in this, whether we like it or not. To adapt a phrase, they have driven into my lane.\u201d<\/p>\n The Samuel Griffith society now has 23 chapters at Australian universities \u2013 a fact Beech-Jones said was \u201ca little more ominous than first appears\u201d.<\/p>\n People who have addressed the society, Beech-Jones said, suggest it \u201cassume the same role as the Federalist Society in the United States in \u2018screening\u2019 judicial appointments and \u2018recruiting\u2019 law students and young lawyers\u201d.<\/p>\n Those young lawyers were \u201cthen offered access to a network of \u2018senior mentors, clerkships with conservative judges and opportunities to extol their judicial beliefs through written work and events\u2019, thereby providing a \u2018pipeline of potential judicial nominees\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf anyone thinks this particular US style of court stacking and judicial decision-making is a good idea, then go and live there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Myers countered, saying: \u201cThe power of the office of High Court judge must be used only for the purposes of performing the duties of that office \u2026 If it is used otherwise, the court is brought into disrepute.<\/p>\n \u201cHe says that judicial decisions can \u2018be criticised\u2019 but not in a \u2018tenor, tone and uniform direction\u2019 that he does not like. Too bad,\u201d Myers told The Australian. \u201cIf you do not like criticism, write more persuasive reasons for judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Robert](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/98d5924a772c49562e964f6b0180d6429dca7a16.jpeg\")
Robert Beech-Jones and Simon Steward.Oscar Colman and Tash Sorrenson<\/p>\n![\"Allan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2d507d2c7780039e6ef7469c2e3b9fd3eedc6491.jpeg\")
Allan Myers, president of the Samuel Griffith Society.Nicole Reed<\/p>\n![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765823356_860_fd58f64f00e997ac513d51f605a335c78b3c4a995e35adf5e218e1a91ebc1723.png\")
Michael Bachelard<\/a> is a senior writer and former deputy editor and investigations editor of The Age. He has worked in Canberra, Melbourne and Jakarta, has written two books and won multiple awards for journalism, including the Gold Walkley.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-702573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}