In a shock move today, the federal government ordered troops on to the waterfront of the national capital, Canberra. Workplace relations minister Peter Reith announced that the judges of the High Court, on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, were to be replaced by a military tribunal and that all future hearings would be conducted as if they were a court martial.
"In today's competitive environment, we can no longer afford the outdated, inefficient and anachronistic practices which the High Court has clung to for so long", he said.
Reith outlined a long list of work practices which he claimed were making the court a laughing-stock around the world, including:
- massive overstaffing, with seven judges duplicating each other's role, when one would be quite sufficient;
- very poor productivity, producing only 120 decisions per annum, compared with world's best practice of 765 per annum, achieved by Lesotho and Brunei;
- excessive meal breaks, referred to as "adjournments", and refusal to work overtime or weekends, despite a huge case backlog;
- insistence on palatial premises, including individual rest rooms and personal libraries for each judge, referred to as "chambers";
- lengthy periods of paid inactivity, supposedly on the grounds that the judges need time to ponder their decisions;
- maintenance of a closed shop, with all judges required to have been members of the Law Society, or "lawyers' union", as Reith called it; and
- lack of any competitive tendering of cases to more cost-effective judges.
"On top of all that they get paid even more than a government minister, and won't even toe the government's line", whined Reith.
"And they don't even have to justify themselves to the communists employed by the ABC, like I do", he said.
"Quite frankly, the Australian taxpayer has had enough of these sorts of rorts and industrial thuggery, and we can't tolerate this farce any longer. This is the first government since federation which has been prepared to stand up and be counted on such a vital issue."
Reith denied that the government's actions had anything to do with the court's recent rejection of the government's position in a number of important cases, and the fact that it might find against the government's alleged co-conspirator, Patrick. "That suggestion is just typical of the trendy pinko lefties in the media — the Australian people aren't stupid, you know; they understand that we are about getting Australians working again, and keeping Australia in the front line of the reform process."
In response to the government's announcement, the judges of the High Court are understood to have reserved their position, and will hand down their decision in about six months. In the meantime, it is thought that they will continue their sit-in in the High Court building.
Meanwhile, the Law Society has threatened a campaign of massive obfuscation and excessive verbosity. In line with the society's normal practice, it has issued a 32-page response to the government's proposal, which an independent expert interpreted to mean "We disagree". It had been thought that the society might threaten to bring the nation's legal processes to a standstill, but it seems that this goal has already been achieved.
A community picket line, including builders' labourers, wharfies, judges, barristers and the governor-general, has been established around the High Court. An application for an injunction to remove the picket line has been listed for hearing in eight months' time.
[Circulated last month on the internet.]