Swearing-in of Koppenol DCJ as a Judge of the District Court

On behalf of the Bar, I congratulate your Honour Judge Koppenol upon your appointment to the District Court.

The Director of Public Prosecutions sends her apology that she is unable to be present.

Your honour’s academic and practical qualifications for appointment have been mentioned by the Chief Judge and by the Attorney-General, so it is unnecessary for me to speak of them in detail.
 
I wish to emphasise only one very relevant aspect of your Honour’s lengthy legal career, that of your practise at the private Bar for the significant period of some 15 or so years. In addition to your honour’s clearly relevant experience as President of the Land and Resources Tribunal, a significant period of successful practice at the bar is of course an important qualification for judicial office.

In the course of your honour’s practise as a barrister, your Honour appeared in some very significant and legally and factually complex litigation.

In that respect, there is an interesting coincidence in the fact that it is me to whom the privilege falls of representing the Bar today.  It is that we appeared together in the High Court in Mabo, as juniors to the then Solicitor General Mr Geoff Davies QC, later Justice Davies in the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Queensland, and now a judge of the Court of Appeal of the Sultanate of Brunei.

Your Honour’s own role in the Mabo litigation has already been mentioned. It was one of the most significant common law cases — perhaps the most significant such case — ever tried in this Country.  Having read the transcript of the proceedings at the trial of facts and appeared with your Honour in the latter part of the case, I can speak with personal knowledge as to the diligence and thoughtfulness that your Honour brought to your appearance in that seminal case.

Your honour, the District Court conducts a very significant share of the criminal and civil proceedings in this State. Ipswich has a not inconsiderable part of that business, and its increasing significance as a centre for the delivery of justice is plain. So much has been recognised by the government’s decisions to appoint a second judge based here and to construct a modern and accessible courthouse.

Both decisions are very much welcomed as being clearly in the public interest, and particularly in the interests of the people of this city.

We are here because of the first of those decisions, to appoint a second District Court Judge to be based in Ipswich. In your judicial responsibilities, your honour will, I’m sure, be much assisted by the Ipswich Bar. It is a vibrant local Bar, the members of which I hope will forgive me for suggesting that their dedication to this city and its legal institutions verges dangerously close to enthusiasm.

In relation to the second of the government’s decisions that I mentioned, the decision to build a new courthouse, that adds another chapter to an already rich legal history of the City. The original courthouse at the corner of East and Roderick Streets was built as long ago as 1859, before the separation of the colony of Queensland from New South Wales on 6 June in that same year. That original courthouse was built to the design of the Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin. It was made of brick and stone on a rubble foundation, with lead guttering and a shingled roof.

The courtroom occupied the central area of the building, where damp was a problem and leaking skylights had to be removed in June 1864. Faulty ridge capping later in 1889 led Mr Justice Harding to complain that he could not sit there any longer. This was reported in the 18 July 1889 issue of the Queensland Times:

No doubt Parliament’s power is very extensive.  But with great respect to his Honour, it seems a rather extreme view that Parliament can stop leaks by enacting legislation.

In any event, so far as the new courthouse is concerned, we hope that it won’t be necessary for you to ask the Parliament to test the limits of its powers in that way.
 
Your Honour, the Bar’s pride in its professional service to the system of justice, of which we are all servants, justifies my assurance to your Honour that the Court, which you now join, will continue to have from our members that full and unstinting assistance to which the Court is entitled in dispensing justice according to law. 

We look forward to your Honour’s contribution to the work of the District Court over the years ahead.

Finally, I would add that your Honour’s family, some of whom have been able to attend today’s ceremony, justly share in the pride of your appointment to this very busy and important court.

May it please the Court.