Valedictory Ceremony for the Honourable Mr Justice Williams AO

May it please the Court. 
Your Honour’s 70th birthday fell last Thursday.  On behalf of the Bar, may I wish your Honour many happy returns of the day.  The result, however, was to bring to an end a significant judicial career which spanned a little over a whole generation.

The Supreme Court is a very different institution to that your Honour joined shortly before Christmas in 1982.  In a speech given on Tuesday of the Australian Bar Association dinner in the High Court, Chief Justice Gleeson expressed the opinion that the best of institutions were those which combined, firstly, continuity which brought the opportunity to learn from history and, secondly, the capacity to adapt in order to meet the demands of new, changing circumstances.

Our Supreme Court has adapted to rapidly changing times since your Honour has joined it and your Honour has been in the forefront of this important and successful process.  Your Honour exemplifies the qualities identified by Chief Justice Gleeson.

In the course of this judicial career, your Honour has displayed all the admirable qualities expected of the very best Judges, a keen talent for forensic analysis, the stamina and interest necessary to gain a command of the facts, courage and a dedication to determining disputes in a principled and practical or sensible way.

The aspect of your Honour’s conduct as a Judge, which has contributed most to the high respect in which you are held by members of the Bar, is that one always received a good hearing in your Honour’s Court.

Part of this was achieved by the unfailingly courteous manner your Honour employed to all people in the courtroom.  The other was the way in which your Honour candidly expressed the views, sometimes only tentative or preliminary ones, which you had formed and liked to debate them, to have them tested in argument with counsel.

Through this process, the advocate and thus the litigant was always given the fullest opportunity to persuade your Honour, the fullest opportunity to win the case and as a result, left the courtroom satisfied that they had received fair treatment.

Extrajudicially, your Honour has had strong interests and made strong contributions throughout your judicial career in a range of important areas of law concerning both procedural and substantive justice. They included dealing with challenges for the legal profession and the legal system, especially the ongoing reform of the procedural law mentioned by his Honour, the Chief Justice.

They related to expert evidence, the nature of the judicial role and the future of the legal profession and even touched on the contemporary relationship, between university graduates and the universities in the era of reduced public funding for tertiary education.

One example is the following advice which your Honour offered in – I think it was 2001 – to an audience of recent and prospective members of the legal profession:

“Work hard, be ethical, be loyal to the law, develop good relations with your fellow practitioners and the Courts and above all, enjoy what you are doing.”

Perhaps the highest tribute the Bar can pay your Honour is to acknowledge that your Honour followed your own advice.  In turn the loyalty and affection this has generated is demonstrated by the numbers in Court this morning.

I’d like to particularly mention five of them standing immediately behind who were your Honour’s associates, Mr Mullins SC, Ms Ryan, Mr Boston, Mr Cooper and Mr Sullivan.

Your Honour leaves the Court but I suspect the time will be just another hectic period.  I understand that already the Queensland Cricket and others are clamouring to win your assistance concerning their affairs.

The Bar wishes your Honour and Mrs Williams a long, happy and fruitful retirement; may it please the Court.

Michael Stewart SC

President