Because there's nothing else going on, this week the Australian Financial Review published an opinion piece by Mia Schlicht complaining our legal establishment has become too left-wing. That’s a problem. Ms Schlicht, a research fellow at the IPA and speaker at CPAC Australia (alas, that's a thing) took issue with a speech by Justice Robert Beech-Jones of the High Court of Australia, in which Justice Beech Jones heavily criticised conservative legal group the Samuel Griffith Society, of which she is an executove director, for co-opting the American principle of cultural orginalism, weaponising their judicial theories to advocate for their ideological views, and having a massive snit whenever things don't go their way:
One academic told a society gathering how "most right-of-centre voters" and right-of-centre politicians are "gall[ed] and disgust[ed]" by having judges who were appointed by right-of-centre governments join in particular decisions that the academic strongly disagreed with.Why those voters unlike others would not appreciate that things are not cut and dried and that judges might legitimately disagree on things is not apparent.
Ms Schlicht had a snit of her own that Beech-Jones only took issue with one side of the culture war, stating "When courts make decisions of a political nature, they should expect scrutiny. That is not a culture war. It is accountability."
The AFR column was only the first and most restrained attack on Beech-Jones for daring to take issue with the Samuel Griffiths society. The speech kept conservative pundits busy for a week, as they slammed the Judge's words as "an unseemly, low-rent rant", a "tirade worthy of any great thespian", and "bench warfare". Some of the criticism came from Society members themselves, usually judges who did not wish to be named by the columnists they confided in, but the President of the Samuel Griffiths Society himself, Allan Myers, had no such shyness when he instructed Beech-Jones to “stay out of politics and stick to the job of deciding cases according to law”.
Oh, they're adorable. Or to put it another way, a bunch of brazen hypocrites and shameless liars. But they're incredibly important and influential hypocrites and liars, which is why they need watching.
The SG Society stated mission is to respect and promote the Australian constitution as originally handed down, restoring the sovereignity of parliament and the independence of the judiciary. Contrary to the cries of woe from Mia Schlicht and many, many others that universities and their legal faculties are beset by leftist ideologies that broke no alternative points of view, the society boasts "Law and Liberty" chapters at more than half of Australian law schools. And chapter members aren't sneaking fearfully into meetings held in a constantly changing array of secret locations, for fear they will be found out and burned - composted, anyway - at the stake by the woke university powers that be. I attended several political subjects at the University of Sydney in the 2010s, alongside a large enrolment of law students, and the conservative leaning students confidently and without reprobation freely spoke their minds in lectures and tutorials.
One of these young Turks, who would have been born after John Howard became Prime Minister and certainly too young to comprehend political events when Howard lost office, had no issue telling me I didn't fully appreciate Howard's political legacy, even though I was clearly old enough to appreciate every second of it and that it was not a good thing, so I flushed his head down the toilet. But that was me personally and would have been frowned upon if university authorities got wind of it.
In their efforts to emulate the Federalist Society, it seems extremely likely the Samuel Griffith society is doing similar to mentor and nurture a new generation of conservative lawyers and judges, a topic which certainly needs ongoing and thorough journalistic investigation.
As for now, I wanted to see what exactly the Samuel Griffith Society believes. I went through the annual papers of the Society from 1992 to 2024 (I really know how to have a good time). If they're aping American concepts such as constitutional originalism, they got in early. Phrases such as "founding fathers", "original intent", and "interpret as written", familiar to observers of the American judicial process, are evident from the earliest of the Society's writings up to recent years. (And there are some real clangers - Zachary Gorman speaking of "a startling demonstration of the Burkean instincts of our founding fathers, instincts which have served our country well for over 123 years," then switching tack in the latter half of his paper, to argue Australia is and should be governed on the classic liberal principles of small government and decentralisation. Edmund Burke, the founding father of conservative philosphy, was not a liberal and classic liberalism is not the same as conservatism. As I said I studied political science at university. Perhaps Mr Gorman should have done the same. If you're going to cite the founding principles of your ideology, you can't just invent a historical concept of conservative-liberalism because you think it sounds good.)
Over the underlying theme, the Samuel Griffith Society are heavily attuned to the issues of the day, from the 1999 Republic Referendum, the centenary of Federation, international climate treaties, religious freedom and same sex marriage, as Justice Beech-Jones pointed out, the Mabo case and Native title, over and over and over again for decades.
Reading the Society's annual papers since 1992, they have softened their views on human rights. Founder of the Society Sir Harry Gibb stated in his 1992 inaugural address that " the people of Australia enjoy as much freedom as exists in any country whose constitution contains an elaborate guarantee of rights", but by 2021 post covid they were up in arms about restrictions. "The restrictions imposed by Australian government in relation to Covid-19 were major restrictions on human rights." Although they're a pretty distractable lot - by 2023 the attention of the brains trust, including such luminaries as Keith Windshuttle, turned to the Voice to Parliament, and I'm sure it won't shock you to learn they were against it. (Mia Schlicht decried the judiciary for what she described as their "overwhelmingly uniform support for the Voice referendum" as evidence of their ideological bias. Hmm, is it possible that judges might legitimately disagree on things?).
Along the way they've enjoyed the thought of such other minds as Jeff Kennet, John Howard, Alan Jones, Geoffrey Blainey, Paddy Mcguinness, Piers Akerman, Janet Albrechtsen, Gerald Henderson, Chris Kenny(!), Peter Reith, Miranda Devine and Christian Porter. (Interestingly, Paul Sheehan is still listed as contributing a report, "The Rule of Lawyers, not Law", to the 2008 society conference, but the link instead directs one to a paper by Peter Faris QC, presumably to remove the taint after Sheehan's fall from grace. I can't find any subsequent mention from the society of Paul Sheehan being cancelled).
The muddy ideology of Zachary Gorman aside, the Samuel Griffith Society sure is devoted to classical conservative principles, especially the principle of "rights for me, not for thee". When Allan Myers tells Justice Beech-Jones to stay out of politics, he's not advocating for an apolitical judiciary. He's specifically telling Beech-Jones and those with similar views that they must stay out of politics. The Samuel Griffith Society, its judges and lawyers will meddle in and influence politics all they like, which is right and proper according to the Samuel Griffith Society, its judges and lawyers.
I've tried to stick to the main themes of the Samuel Griffith Society here, but in my research of their papers I found many horrific takes, an unexpected hero, and a blessing for the sovereign citizens. But this post was long enough already, so expect a follow up post quite soon.
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