From: fun@thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: Kevin Anderson autobio extract Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 07:18:02 GMT Organization: Please try to understand before one of us dies. Lines: 106 Message-ID: <34e03a91.3362441@thingy.apana.org.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: thingy.apana.org.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Sir Kevin Anderson is the author of the famous Anderson Report, presented to the Victorian State Government in 1965 and promptly leading to the banning of Scientology in Victoria. I spent a happy (except for the bit involving Census figures) day yesterday researching in the State Library of Victoria, and found a copy of Anderson's autobiography: 'Fossils In The Sandstone: the recollecting judge' (Spectrum Publications, Melbourne, 1986; ISBN 0-86786-095-2 hardback, 0-86876-090-1 paperback). You'll have to wait for photos - the photocopier in the Latrobe Room (State collection) is half-dead, but is slated for replacement in a month or so. Scientology isn't mentioned by name in the book. And in the list of author's works at the front, guess which Report is missing. However, our favourite applied religious philosophy is mentioned in passing in the first part of Chapter 17, pages 205-207. (*Asterisks* indicate italics.) CHAPTER 17 LAW REPORTERS AND OTHERS For almost the whole of my legal career, particularly while I was at the Bar, I was closely associated with law reporting. In the years before I was appointed to the Bench, I was Editor and then Consulting Editor for the Argus Law Reports, which ultimately became the Australian Law Reports. However, my more substantial connexion with law reporting was with the Victorian Law Reports, since 1957 called the Victorian Reports. The deletion of "Law" from the title, of which I did not approve, was for commercial reasons, and was in line with a practice at the time, for other series of reports also deleted "Law" from their titles. This gave rise to the cynical slander that the Reports were now more truly named, because they contained no law - a heresy, of course. I think I may modestly lay claim to a doubtful sort of record because of the variety of ways in which I have been associated with the Victorian Reports. Shortly after commencing at the Bar, I became a law reporter for the Victorian Law Reports, and I continued in that role until 1956, when Percy Joske, later Mr Justice Joske of the Federal Industrial Court, retired as Editor and I succeeded him in that role and held the appointment until I went onto the Bench in 1969. During the time I was at the Bar, a number of cases in which I appeared were reported, and so my name appeared from time to time as counsel. After I went on the Bench, it was inevitable that some of my judgments would be reported, so, for better or worse, my name as a judge is perpetuated in the Reports. Then, in 1971, I found myself as a litigant, in the good company of Gordon Just, who was by then a judge of the County Court and who from 1963 to 1965, had been counsel assisting me when I had been Chairman of a Board of Inquiry. The Board's report was not pleasing to some people, but they waited until the statutory period of six years had almost expired before they expressed their displeasure in the form of writs. By that time, Just and I had long been appointed to our respective Benches. Amongst the plaintiffs who sued me was one who issued a writ against me, and another writ against Just and me. Broadly speaking, the claims were for damages for defamation, though they extended beyond that. The litigation dragged on for some time until the Victorian Parliament passed an Act which, though facetiously called the "Anderson Protection Act", gave statutory effect to the generally held legal opinion that those associated with a Royal Commission or a Board of Inquiry possessed the same immunity from suit that those associated with an action in the Supreme Court had. After the Act was passed, an application was made to Mr Justice McInerney to strike the actions out. He held the two actions to be frivolous and vexatious and an abuse of the process of the Court, and he dismissed them accordingly. The plaintiff appealed to the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria, comprising justices Smith, Pape and Crockett. That Court dismissed the appeal, and later refused the plaintiff leave to appeal to the Privy Council. The plaintiff, being dissatisfied with the manner in which the Full Court had dealt with him, then sought leave directly from the Privy Council itself to appeal, but that august body refused leave, commenting, *inter alia*, that the correctness of the opinion of Mr Justice McInerney really did not admit of argument. And so it is merely as a matter of record, and not as a boast, that I mention that my name has adorned the Law Reports as reporter, editor, counsel, judge and litigant. Much prestige attaches to counsel who has appeared before the Privy Council; but to appear before it as a litigant, as I did, does not necessarily carry the same distinction, and I cannot claim to have appeared before the Privy Council as counsel. However, once I nearly did. My advice was sought as to whether an insurance company should appeal to the Privy Council in a workers compensation case. I advised that an appeal would not succeed. The company was not satisfied with that advice, and consulted other counsel who advised that an appeal should succeed. So he was briefed to appear before the Privy Council. He was not successful. His failure, however, did him no harm. His reputation was now enhanced, for he now had a Privy Council practice, and, when a few years later, the same insurance company had a matter it wanted to take to the Privy Council, it naturally briefed him. This time he was successful. -- http://thingy.apana.org.au/~fun/ http://www.suburbia.net/~fun/ Stop JUNK EMAIL Boycott AMAZON.COM http://mickc.home.mindspring.com/index1.htm "You make your own dinner nauseous" - Handbag Deb's beasties