Valedictory Ceremony for the Hon Mr Justice Moynihan

It is my great pleasure, to speak  on behalf of the Bar today in honour of Justice Moynihan’s long service to the law and to the people of Queensland.

Your Honour had an impressive career at the bar, taking silk in 1980, in recognition of your Honour’s practice and already evident abilities. Apart from a broad range of litigation, notable appearances by your Honour included as counsel assisting the Royal Commission into drilling the Great Barrier Reef, as counsel assisting the Australian Royal Commission of Inquiry into drug trafficking, appearances in the Inquiry into mining and other development on Moreton Island.

Your Honour was not, however, a wordy barrister. Indeed, I can report that on one occasion in the High Court, sitting in Canberra, your Honour, appearing for a respondent in a large personal injuries appeal, managed to defeat an appeal without using any words. Perhaps you succeeded by the quality of your silent bows in response to the various remarks directed to you by the Court, but I prefer to think that your Honour simply bowled the court over by your well- known sartorial elegance.

The Chief Justice has spoken of the value to the Court, in addition to your judicial work, of your Honour’s administrative skills. It is interesting to note the earlier manifestations of this in your work for the Association.

The Association has recently entered into a new contract with QUT for delivery of the Bar Practice Course, a course to which many judges and barristers contribute and have contributed so much. There will be many barristers here who have greatly benefited from that course.

What is perhaps not well known now, even though it was acknowledged as recently as your Honour’s swearing-in as a judge of this court on 13 February 1984, is your work on the Bar Association in promoting and working towards the establishment of the first of these courses for aspiring barristers. You were an inaugural member of the Committee of Management of the Bar Practice Course.

At your swearing-in, our then President, Mr Pincus, described the establishment of this course as “one of the most important steps we have taken in recent years”. The passage of time has demonstrated that this was an understatement. The course is an achievement of lasting and important significance to our branch of the profession, and it is fitting that your role in its creation again be acknowledged today.

Of importance to the bar also was that you volunteered for many of the Association’s committees, and, in that capacity, were instrumental in cementing good relations with the Law Society — a relationship of particular importance to barristers.

But even measured against your Honour’s full life at the bar, your Honour’s judicial career is simple staggering: a little under a quarter of a century as a judge of the State’s Supreme Court, including some 7 years as President of the Industrial Court, and some 16 years as the Senior Judge Administrator. The importance and value of that work, and the public service you have given for so long cannot be overstated.

You have been honoured for your judicial and quasi-judicial work, as the Chief Justice has already noted.

However, into each life some rain must fall. I use the expression in a way that today seems counter-intuitive, as referring to a bad thing.

I refer of course to your Honour’s sentence of some 5 years hard labour  – as the Judge in charge of the building and engineering cases. Such a term should be expected to have oppressed and depressed the most gregarious and equable judge. But I can attest, from the standpoint of a sometime advocate in that jurisdiction, that your Honour enthusiastically shouldered the burden of administering even the most turgid of building cases. And that your Honour did so patiently and uncomplainingly. Mostly.

The Bar honours your significant judicial career. We wish you and your family happiness and fulfilment in this new phase of life.

On behalf of the bar, I also welcome the appointment of your Honour Justice Byrne as Senior Judge Administrator. I congratulate your Honour and wholeheartedly endorse the Chief Justice’s welcoming remarks.

May it please the Court.