Our new Chief Justice hears many voices

Australia's new Chief Justice, Robert Shenton French, did not set out to make the law his career: when he left school and went to university, it was to study science.

"Initially I wanted to become a great theoretical physicist," he told a conference of physicists back in 1995.

"In third year, however, the dean said to me after a seminar presentation, 'you express yourself magnificently, but I am not sure you know what you are talking about'.

"So I decided to become a lawyer."

Now he has reached the pinnacle of the legal profession in becoming the 12th Chief Justice of the High Court, and the first from Western Australia.

Justice French beat NSW Chief Justice Jim Spigelman for the job. Spigelman, a former adviser to Gough Whitlam and regarded as close to federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland, was the favourite.

French was also regarded as a strong chance but dropped out of calculations a little when, less than a fortnight ago, the government appointed him president of the Australian Competition Tribunal.

The question now is: was that announcement deliberately designed to confuse? Or did the government’s left hand not know what the right hand was doing?

While Spigelman has impeccable Labor Party connections, French once ran for Federal Parliament as a Liberal.

In the 1969 Federal Election he stood, unsuccessfully, for the WA seat of Fremantle against Kim Beazley Senior (father of the Kim who later became Labor leader).

Also, as a federal court judge, French sided with the Howard Government in the Tampa case.

But as his appointment by the Rudd Cabinet shows, the Labor Party bore no grudges.

Now 61, French was appointed to the federal court at the age of 39 and soon came to be regarded as one of the finest judges there.

He founded the WA Aboriginal Legal Service and was the first president of the National Native Title Tribunal.

While on record as saying he does not consider himself a "black letter lawyer", French warned a few years ago that increasing resort to the courts for resolution of social issues was likely to generate tensions with institutions such as government and the churches.

Praising his record as a trial judge last month, The Australian newspaper noted "four decisions which were overturned on appeal but restored by the High Court" and "four others when his minority view in an appeal was adopted by the High Court".

In a speech earlier this year, French told about a vacation job he'd had in his student days: he was a ward orderly in a mental hospital where he met a patient who heard voices.

"I have been a judge for 21 years — the voices have kept at me and at me," he said.

"Mellifluous, strident, sad, cool, persuasive, angry … voices demanding justice, voices insisting upon the law, some voices wanting both.

"Sir Owen Dixon was once warned that, if he stayed long enough on the bench, he would go mad ... I confidently expected to avoid madness: so far I think I have, in spite of the voices, but it may just be that my concept of normality has shifted."

The current Chief Justice, Murray Gleeson, will retire on August 29 after 10 years heading the High Court and the new man will be sworn in the following Monday.