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Former Supreme Court judge Lex Lasry has opened fire on politicians and the media in a public speech made just days after leaving the bench, claiming the justice system is being compromised by cynical \u201cperformative outrage\u201d and \u201cpolitical theatre\u201d.<\/p>\n
It was a significant public intervention in what is shaping up in Victoria to be a potential law-and-order state election in November, with the Allan government under sustained pressure over its handling of street crime, youth crime and bail.<\/p>\n
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Former barrister and Victorian Supreme Court judge Lex Lasry, pictured in 2018.Simon Schluter<\/p>\n
Lasry, a judge for nearly 20 years in Victoria and the Northern Territory, also warned Australia was headed down the pathway of America under President Donald Trump, where the judiciary was being actively undermined by personal attacks and delegitimised of their authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen judges are publicly criticised or vilified, the attacks reveal a problem \u2026 They illustrate how thin \u2013 or how robust \u2013 our commitment to judicial independence really is. If you want to understand a nation\u2019s constitutional character, watch how its politicians speak about its judges,\u201d Lasry said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is important to understand that judicial independence matters because courts are places where rights are protected and power is constrained.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lasry delivered his speech at the Criminal Lawyers Association NT conference in Bali<\/a> last week, just three days after stepping down from the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The speech was originally titled \u201cSeparation of Powers: Then and Now\u201d, but Lasry changed it to what he said was \u201ca more appropriate title\u201d: \u201cThe Ritualised Art of Shouting at the Scoreboard.\u201d<\/p>\n Having joined the bench in 2007, Lasry sat in judgment on some of the biggest cases in Victoria\u2019s history, including triple child murderer Robert Farquharson, prison gang boss Matthew Johnson and sex killer Sean Price.<\/p>\n As a lawyer, Lasry was involved in controversial cases<\/a> such as terrorist \u201cJihad Jack\u201d Thomas, defending Van Nguyen, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in foreign death penalty prosecutions, and was junior counsel assisting the Costigan royal commission.<\/p>\n Related Article His motive for delivering the critical speech, Lasry said, was his significant concern with \u201cthe ever-increasing level of personal criticism \u2013 and, at times, personal vilification \u2013 of judges\u201d exhibited by the media and politicians.<\/p>\n It was part and parcel of an attempt to make criticism of the judiciary as normal and acceptable as political criticism, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cMedia critics of the judiciary and politicians require that judges be in touch with \u2018community expectations\u2019 \u2013 whatever that means, and however it might be measured,\u201d Lasry said.<\/p>\n This is likely to be interpreted as a shot across the bow for the Allan government, which has sent warnings to the judiciary around community expectations that have been subsequently publicly leaked via the media.<\/p>\n This included a letter from Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Richard Niall around the toughening of bail decisions in March 2025, where she said the judiciary needed to help re-establish trust with the public.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is imperative that police, government and the courts are all working together to meet community expectations of what their justice system should deliver and to keep them safe,\u201d Kilkenny wrote.<\/p>\n There have been dramatic changes to the state\u2019s bail laws and the way the justice system manages youth offenders over the past two years, following a spate of high-profile violent crime sprees and sometimes controversial bail and sentencing decisions made by magistrates and judges.<\/p>\n The number of bail breaches soared to nearly 16,900 in the year to March 2026 \u2013 up nearly 70 per cent since the government created new offences for committing crimes while on bail \u2013 according to the Crime Statistics Agency.<\/p>\n The recently introduced \u201cadult time for violent crime\u201d laws were implemented in part as a response to perceptions that the system was treating young repeat offenders too leniently. As part of the laws, responsibility for handling serious violent crimes moved from the Children\u2019s Court to the County Court.<\/p>\n Related Article In his speech, Lasry noted the high-profile example in 2018 when then-federal Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton blamed a perceived epidemic of street crime in Victoria on \u201ccivil libertarians\u201d on the bench, \u201clily-livered judges and magistrates\u201d who go \u201cweak at the knees\u201d.<\/p>\n More recently, Lasry laid into the comments by Victorian Liberal shadow attorney-general James Newbury, who claimed in April that if Liberals were elected, the system would change.<\/p>\n \u201cOur new judges will know that a Wilson government expects they meet community expectations when it comes to consequences and punishment for serious offending,\u201d Newbury said<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lasry responded: \u201cFrankly, community expectations have come to mean what angry media commentators want it to mean: heavier sentences as though you can have that view globally.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite what some media commentary suggests, the most important qualities are impartiality and independence, anchored in a commitment to doing justice and properly fulfilling the court\u2019s role in the separation of powers from the parliament and the executive.\u201d<\/p>\n Lasry, who resigned from Victoria\u2019s Supreme Court as a reserve judge in 2024, also had some pointed criticism for the oversight work of judicial commissions \u2013 of which he was the subject of an investigation ahead of his decision to step down.<\/p>\n![\"Chief](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782748093_690_b6ff14d91ed44cf277d85b739ccf7b40e20f8584.jpeg\")
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