Save articles for later

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.

The Supreme Court hears Victoria’s most heinous crimes: murder and manslaughter for a start. Hearings can be brutal as cases are pored over in agonising detail.

Lately, though, jurors and judges seem to be less than impressed with the state of Victoria’s most esteemed court.

Debate has been raging behind closed doors about the appropriateness of the old Supreme Court building.Credit: Darrian Traynor

In March, a well-respected judge articulated their dismay in a court hearing.

“I’m just told there’s a mouse. We have got mice,” the judge said. “I have to say, they do inhabit this court and I have seen them in my own chambers … So we’ll try not to think about the mouse for the time being. It’s a very old building.”

That judge wasn’t the only one to notice something amiss. During a recent proceeding, a juror interjected to let the court know that the temperature had become too much to bear.

“Sorry to interrupt. Just before you start, um, some members of the jury are a little bit cold. There’s actually quite a bit of a breeze.”

“Yes, my associates have mentioned that to me,” the judge responded.

“Probably trying to keep you awake whilst I’m speaking,” a barrister quipped.

“It’s freezing,” the juror pointed out.

The judge then concluded: “But we’d better get something done about it immediately because we don’t want jurors sitting there feeling like they’re in Antarctica … Because if you’re really cold, you can’t concentrate. I know that much.”

The court building dates back to 1884.Credit: Vince Caligiuri

Debate has been raging behind closed doors about the appropriateness of the old building, erected in 1884, as a forum for modern criminal justice. Some say it’s dated and in desperate need of modernising but retains its centrality out of an obligation to tradition.

“It was the largest and most expensive project in 19th-century Australia, and marred by controversies, scandal, and budget blowouts,” the court’s website says.

Are there plans to give it a spruce-up? We don’t know – the court didn’t respond to our comment request. Time to start looking for a new building, we think.

BRAZIL BECKONS

Controversial neurosurgeon Charlie Teo has few friends left in the medical community. Last week, a disciplinary committee found him guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct and placed more restrictions on his ability to operate.

Charlie Teo is off to Brazil.Credit: Jozsef Benke

Evidence provided during the hearing this year found not a single neurosurgeon in Australia and New Zealand was willing to speak up in Teo’s favour. He contends it’s all part of a decades-long campaign by jealous rivals to ruin his reputation and freeze him out.

But all this means Teo has been forced to look overseas for neurosurgical love, doing operations in India, China and Europe since he first faced restrictions at home. And coming up on the list of destinations is Brazil, where a neurosurgical body is spruiking Teo’s trip to three cities in the country’s north-east later this year.

Teo certainly has a good relationship with Latin America. During a podcast last week, the surgeon boasted about receiving a distinguished service award from former Cuban leader Fidel Castro after doing voluntary work in Cuba.

“I love the fact that I can change someone’s life … but to be able to change the course of medicine in an entire country, that’s a real honour,” Teo said.

FIRED UP

Combustible United Firefighters Union Victorian branch secretary Peter Marshall has never been afraid of running headlong into a blazing row. But a fresh lawsuit raising old union enmities might put that to the test.

The union is being sued by ATC, a company that used to provide income protection insurance to its members. ATC asserts in its case in the Federal Court that the union’s arrangement with a mob called Protect Services, which administered the insurance, was abruptly terminated by Marshall last August, with consequences for ATC.

The insurer says a Protect employee had told Marshall about a charity function it would be hosting and had possessed doubts about whether Marshall would want to attend given that officials from two of his union’s bitter rivals – the Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union – were likely to be invited.

Marshall is said to have sent Protect CEO Michael Connolly an email the same day saying Protect had decided to exclude the firefighters’ union from the soiree.

Before the day was out, ATC alleges, Marshall had told Connolly that his union had decided to give Protect’s insurance admin deal the axe. Marshall later allegedly said if Protect “made things difficult” he would “ruin” it and tell others that it was “an operative for [Premier] Dan Andrews”.

Firefighters’ union boss Peter Marshall addresses a rally.Credit: Justin McManus

We knew things weren’t good between Andrews and Marshall – to say the two men have history barely scratches the surface … but wowzer.

Anyhoo, ATC says it was later told that if it would only continue providing the union’s members with insurance if Protect, with which it was described as closely intertwined, were still on board, then it was also “sacked”.

The union hasn’t lodged a defence to ATC’s statement, and its attempt to have the whole thing thrown out of court last month before it went to a full hearing was dismissed. With costs.
So we might not have heard the last of this. A legal representative for Marshall declined to comment.

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.

Most Viewed in National

From our partners

Source: Read Full Article