"This month marks the bicentenary of the establishment of the Supreme Court of New South Wales on 17 May 1824. Letters Patent pursuant to the New South Wales Act 1823 (Imp) explained its establishment to have been for the “better administration of justice” and “more effective government”. Its establishment furnished the stable legal foundation for the ensuing creation and development of institutions of representative and responsible government in New South Wales.

The Supreme Court expanded that foundational role when it took its place as one of six State Supreme Courts within the indissoluble system of national government agreed to by the Australian people and established by the Australian Constitution. That nationally expanded role endures. The Court has facilitated the realisation of Alfred Deakin’s prediction in 1902 that “the natural development of [the Australian] judicial system” would make the unity of our courts “more pronounced, and the gradation more perfect”. “What are [State Supreme] Courts”, one can meaningfully ask employing the powerful rhetoric of Sir James Martin, the first Australian-educated Chief Justice of New South Wales, “but the embodied force of the community, whose rights they are appointed to protect?” 

The Australian judiciary, as a whole, joins with the Supreme Court of New South Wales in celebrating this significant milestone in our shared national journey."