Anniversaries

100th Anniversary

The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 17 May 1924:   “A NOTABLE CENTENARY. On the seventeenth day of May, 1824 - exactly one hundred years ago to-day - the first Supreme Court to be held in Australia was opened at Sydney by Sir Francis Forbes, the first Chief Justice of the colony. It was a great day for the youthful settlement, and to-day is a notable anniversary of it...

The course of that history is - or should be of the greatest interest to every Australian, for he owes much to the evolution of liberty and the social advancement which it connotes. To study it is to study the growth of our nation from its beginnings as a penal colony to its present status as a dominion in the great Imperial chain, and as a free Commonwealth independent in all but its loyal subservience to the Crown. The coming of Sir Francis Forbes, and the opening of that first Supreme Court, is one of the great milestones in the story of our progress; for it marks the replacement of the previous summary methods of the military tribunals by the due and formal procedure of the British Constitution.” 

150th Anniversary

Sir Victor Windeyer, speaking at the ecumenical service for the 150th anniversary:   “The court has been frequently, and very greatly, augmented since [1824]. In its collegiate and corporate capacity it is now very different from its early days. The range of its jurisdiction and the nature of the causes that come before it are vastly greater. Its organisation, structure and procedure are greatly changed. Recently, the Supreme Court Act, 1970, of the Parliament of New South Wales, effected a complete metamorphosis, so much so that one might wonder whether the Supreme Court today is really the court that George IV established, or is a new court bearing an old name. The New South Wales Parliament seemingly sought to answer that: “The Supreme Court of New South Wales as formerly established as the superior court of record in New South Wales is hereby continued.””

Kerr CJ on the 150th anniversary:   

“It may seem a paradox that a busy profession, preoccupied with matters of the present and the future, should in May 1974, be pausing to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of an old document called the Charter of Justice under which the Supreme Court was founded. But there is more to commemorate than a merely sentimental concern with the past... what we commemorate is not so much the document itself as the event of its proclamation in 1824, and its consequences today... 

While we look back with appreciation on the achievements of the Court and its Judges and celebrate its history, we should look forward as well to the achievements that must be attained in the future if the Court is properly to serve the needs of the present century and the years following. Doubtless there will be changes in the future to meet changing needs but the community may well feel pleased if, in charting out the future course of our judicial administration, the well-tried values dispensing justice, inherited from Westminster through the Charter of Justice, continue to be maintained and cherished here in New South Wales as they have since 1824.”

175th Anniversary

Aunty Ali Golding speaking at the ceremonial sitting, marking the 175th anniversary:  “Just standing here thinking, 175 years, and what the day represents, right up to the 175th anniversary of the Court, law and order, and as an Aboriginal, I think on the same land that we are standing on now, before 175 years ago, before that time, there was a great, strict discipline, law and order in practice then with our Aboriginal people; so to me it is - I grew up also in my time in a great discipline of law and order.”

Spigelman CJ speaking at the ceremonial sitting, marking the 175th anniversary:  

“There is an embedded wisdom in institutions which have grown and developed over long periods of time. Experience indicates that contemporary custodians of such institutions, and those whose conduct can impinge on their activities, should approach their tasks with an element of humility. After 175 years of tradition, it is appropriate that we should conclude in that spirit.”

The Honourable Gough Whitlam AC QC speaking at the ceremonial sitting, marking the 175th anniversary:  “I am confident that, when the next generation celebrates the bicentennial of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, the officers of the Court will again acknowledge and applaud the contribution which its judges have made to the development of the common law and the rule of law throughout Australia.”

Gleeson CJ, speaking at the gala dinner for the 175th anniversary:   “The Supreme Court is one of Australia’s great and enduring institutions of State. Such institutions frequently need development, modernisation and revitalisation. They need to be able to change in order to remain the same. But the institutions which support our communal life are not like freestanding trees in an avenue. They are more like tangled vines. Sometimes they need to be pruned, or even cut back hard, but that is a job for a gardener, not an axeman. Whatever changes be ahead, the essence of the Court’s character will remain unchanged. As in the past, so in the future, it will be as explained by Francis Forbes: uncontrolled and independent, bowing to no power but the supremacy of law.”

The Honourable John Howard AC, then Prime Minister, speaking at the ceremonial sitting, marking the 175th anniversary: “… you need an incorruptible judiciary, and the courts of this nation, of which the Supreme Court of New South Wales is in many ways the exemplar, have through the years, demonstrated constant integrity, a constant discipline and constant incorruptibility. The willingness of courts to impose upon themselves, and particularly this Court, those disciplines, on its members, has been a constant reassurance to successive generations of Australians.”