By Riley Walter
The alienation of Australia’s middle class from the legal system and a lack of affordability for complainants to litigate are failures of the country’s justice framework, prominent Federal Court Justice Michael Lee says.
In conversation with former ABC chair Ita Buttrose at the annual Women in Media conference, held at the Sofitel Sydney on Friday, Lee also said he was “troubled” by Australians’ lack of trust in the courts and justice system, and that journalists and publications should more vigorously fight suppression orders.
Justice Michael Lee says Australians’ lack of trust in the courts is troubling.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
“It’s very much a concern to me that not only the average middle-class Australian, but even the quite wealthy Australian is alienated from the legal system in the sense that they really can’t afford to litigate,” Lee said.
“And that’s a failure of the system, a single failure of the system.”
During a wide-ranging conversation on media and the law, Lee, who has handed down judgments on some of the country’s highest profile cases in recent years, said he was “troubled” by revelations, first revealed in the Herald, that just 30 per cent of Australians have faith in the courts and justice system.
“It is reflective of a general distrust of institutions.”
Ita Buttrose at the Women In Media national conference.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
Lee said journalists and publications should fight suppression and non-publication orders “more vigorously”.
“One way I think the media could do better is ensuring that courts and judges are held to account when it comes to suppression laws and things that interfere with the principles of open justice,” he said.
“Any time that a suppression order is made in my court … the news media has a statutory right to appeal and challenge the order and be heard on whether the order will be made.”
Several of Lee’s highest profile judgments have been livestreamed, including Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation proceedings against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson. He said open justice was fundamental to the way courts operated and the ability to hold them to account.
Referring to his recent landmark judgment that herbicide Roundup cannot be proven to cause cancer, Lee said viewers of the livestream could see “the law in action” and the “transparent nature of it”.
But he said his preference was to have trials play out in person in a post-COVID courtroom rather than via remote technology.
“Some of my colleagues were very willing to embrace remote technology for trials. I don’t think that’s a great idea,” he said.
“I want to be able to see the whites of people’s eyes and I think it’s very different from somebody sitting in their home … possibly wearing pyjama bottoms and with their cat wandering around and in the safety and security of their home.
“As a cross-examiner, I would have hated it.”
Lee, who was appointed to the Federal Court in 2017, said he planned to take six months off next year to write a screenplay set in 1930s Sydney.
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