Alexandra Patrikios reports in The Brisbane Times (19.6.15) on a speech by former solicitor-general Walter Sofronoff to the Australian Academy of Law, in which he said ‘because the bench was a natural extension of the bar, judges would ideally maintain a “cultural breeding” that instilled personal integrity and resistance to political influence.
‘Such attitudes are not characteristic of judges who have a proclivity to please the executive government or who crave popularity.
‘To answer these attacks, barristers must assume an advocacy of their profession and its community-backed integrity.
I think the members of the bar must accept that it is part of their duty … to defend them and the judiciary as a whole against such attacks.’