Attorney-General Michael Atkinson has today been forced to admit that he failed to comply with the law when the government appointed the sister of a Labor faction leader as judge of the Industrial Relations court without "proper consultation>".
He said the Fair Work Act requires that “before” a judge is assigned to be a judge of the
“A proclamation appeared in the Government Gazette on 14 July stating that the assignment was made ‘after consultation by the Attorney-General’ with both judges, Mr Lawson said. “However, today in Parliament, under questioning in the House of Assembly from Opposition frontbencher, Vickie Chapman, the Attorney-General admitted that he did not consult as required. “The government attempted to overcome the difficulty by issuing another proclamation on July 21 which acknowledged that the earlier proclamation ‘may have been ineffectual’.” Mr Lawson said. In Parliament, Mr Lawson said the requirement to consult with the two judges “is an important provision because the judges … may have some view about the capacity, the impartiality, the incompetence and the integrity of persons assigned to the Court”. “The State’s first law officer either doesn’t know what the law is or he is not sufficiently diligent to obey it.
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Friday, September 23, 2005
LACK OF CONSULTATION IN I.R. JUDGE APPOINTMENT- LIBS
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