Damien Carrick: Hello, welcome to the Law Report, Damien Carrick here. Should Indigenous prisoners who create paintings in a prison art studio be able to sell those artworks and pocket the proceeds? Two art exhibitions, one in Melbourne and the other in Brisbane, highlight the dramatically different approaches taken around the country. That's later in the program.

For the first time, Australia has a female chief Justice. On Monday in an impressive ceremony at the High Court of Australia in Canberra, Susan Kieful was sworn in as the nation's top judge.

Susan Kiefel: When I came to the bar in 1975, there were very few women members of the profession. This is not the occasion to consider why this was so. The point presently to be made is that this has changed, and so has the composition of this court.

Damien Carrick: Although the speeches were dignified and subdued, there was a palpable sense of celebration and history in the courtroom.

Dr Heather Roberts is a senior lecturer at the Australian National University. She attended the swearing-in.

Heather Roberts: The courtroom was full of distinguished women lawyers, and you could see also the future generation for women in the law with the associates seated behind the judges on the court. Of the 11 associates there, six were women, so a very different gender picture today from what we could imagine happened 30 years ago with the swearing-in of the first woman of the court, Mary Gaudron.

Damien Carrick: So this is of course a historic moment in time. Australia has its first female Chief Justice. How was this acknowledged in the speeches?

Heather Roberts: In many different ways. The attorney general, as perhaps we might have expected from the way he announced the appointment of Susan Kiefel, placed great emphasis on the fact that she is an extraordinary judge with an unusual background, and her story is one of inspiration for both men and women. This was the starting point for his speech. He then went on to emphasise the historic first for women. That was very different to the second speaker welcoming the new Chief Justice, Fiona McLeod, President of the Law Council of Australia, who framed her speech to signify the great importance of the event for women in the law in Australia for marking the fact that we have a first female Chief Justice, and noting also that the ceremony started with a dramatic visual difference for women, the fact that our new female Chief Justice took her oath of office and allegiance from another female justice, Justice Virginia Bell.

Damien Carrick: How about Susan Kiefel herself, how did her speech address this momentous occasion?

Heather Roberts: Her speech was one of emphasising the extraordinary importance of the role of the Chief Justice within the Australian legal system. And she also acknowledged of course that when she was appointed as a Queen's Counsel in Queensland, she was the first woman to that role and the landscape for women was very different. But her speech was one of emphasising that for women of talent, the pathway through the judiciary was available to them.

Damien Carrick: Of course she is remarkable for a number of reasons, not least being that she left school at aged 15 and she worked as a legal secretary and then completed high school part-time. And then instead of studying law at university, which is sort of the traditional way of getting your degree, she studied law in the evening through the barristers' board system. So she really has an unusual and quite inspirational journey.

Heather Roberts: She definitely does. The last time a High Court judge took this pathway into the law was 1987 with Justice Michael McHugh, and it's an incredible story. I think particularly it was a wonderful coincidence that the news of her appointment came out just as year 12 students were getting their university results. So any that might have been disheartened that they couldn't get into law straight away need only to look to the example of Susan Kiefel to see that there are other pathways to success in the law.

Damien Carrick: Heather Roberts, this is a smashing of the glass ceiling in a very profound way. Was there a sense of muted, dignified nevertheless, but sense of celebration and a sense of extraordinary moment in history?

Heather Roberts: Definitely Damien. The assembled audience, particularly after the ceremony, there was a real buzz in the High Court in a very positive sense of what this moment means for the Australian legal community and women in law. Fiona McLeod's speech, this was a very prominent theme. More muted certainly from the Attorney General. But we could be left with no doubt that everyone in the room recognised that history was being made.

Damien Carrick: Now, Susan Kiefel has been a member of the High Court since 2007. From the way that she has carried out her role so far on the bench, what can we tell about the way she might carry out her role as Chief Justice?

Heather Roberts: That's a fabulous question Damien. We do have to be a little bit careful because we've had Chief Justices in the past who have somewhat surprised us in how they've transformed from being a Justice to being a Chief Justice. Chief Justice Mason is a notable example. But one of the key themes in her swearing-in speeches and in the welcomes today was the importance of collegiality in the way Susan Kiefel approaches her role and how she views the court as a collegiate institution. So based on her past decisions and what she said at her swearing-in, we can expect a court that will work towards joint judgements where it's possible and also recognise that of course individual judges need to write their own decisions when they disagree or have a different perspective.

Damien Carrick: Susan Kiefel's appointment is of course momentous, but it was in no way a surprise, was it.

Heather Roberts: No, I don't think we can say it was a surprise. She was the most senior judge on the court at the time of the retirement of Chief Justice French, and it's a tradition in Australia, although by no means required, that a new Chief Justice will be selected either from the most senior judge currently sitting on the bench or taken from outside. Susan Kiefel's record on the High Court was one that is greatly respected. Prior to her elevation as Chief she has extraordinary judicial experience. So it certainly wasn't a surprise, but that does not make it any less welcome.

Damien Carrick: Absolutely, it's a historic day. Rather lost in the excitement was the swearing-in of the newest member of the court, Justice James Edelman in the afternoon. He's a bit of a wunderkind, isn't he.

Heather Roberts: He has certainly been described as a precocious intellect. He is one of the youngest judges of the High Court. You have to look back to judges born in the 1880s to find any younger judge appointed to the court…

Damien Carrick: How old is he? Is he early 40s?

Heather Roberts: He is, that's right, 43 years old, he is just pipped at the post for the second youngest judge by Sir Owen Dixon, one of Australia's most notable judges.

Damien Carrick: So if the age of retirement is aged 70, that means he's going to be around for a long time on the High Court. So he is a likely future Chief Justice, can we go that far?

Heather Roberts: I think just by the length of time that he will be on the court, he would definitely be a likely candidate for a Chief Justiceship, and that was the path of course that Sir Owen Dixon took when he was appointed. He was appointed very young and was ultimately a very famous Chief Justice of Australia.

Damien Carrick: Heather Roberts, a final question. On a personal level, what did you take from yesterday's big events?

Heather Roberts: It was extraordinary to see Australia's first female Justice sworn in at such a significant event and a milestone for Australian society to recognise that women are performing these key public roles. What was so interesting, contrasting the two ceremonies that happened yesterday, Damien, was to see the different ways in which women in law are welcomed, but also perhaps a changing perspective on the importance of having broad diversity in the courts, diversity not just in gender but also diversity in age of the people who are deciding our key legal disputes. Justice Edelman is a judge born in the 1970s.

Damien Carrick: Heather Roberts, thanks so much for speaking to the Law Report.

Heather Roberts: Thanks very much Damien.

Damien Carrick: Dr Heather Roberts, senior lecturer at the Australian National University.</s>On Monday, more than 113 years since the first chief justice of the High Court was sworn in and 30 years after the first woman sat on its bench, Justice Kiefel was sworn in as the court's first female chief justice.</s>Australia now has its first female chief justice of the high court after Susan Kiefel was sworn in on Monday.

The occasion was marked by a ceremony in which the attorney general, George Brandis, described her life as a “truly great Australian story”, one to “inspire women and men alike”.

Kiefel said that it had taken more than 80 years from when women were able to vote in 1902, and when the high court was established in 1903, for the first female justice of the high court, Mary Gaudron, to be appointed in 1987.

Kiefel was appointed to the court in 2007 after serving on the federal court since 1994.

Kiefel noted the composition of the high court had changed – it now has three female justices including justices Virginia Bell and Michelle Gordon.

“The appointment of more women to this court recognises that there are now women who have the necessary legal ability and experience as well as the personal qualities to be a justice of this court,” she said.

“There seems no reason to think that that situation will not be maintained in the future. It may well improve.”



Kiefel, who was appointed to succeed Robert French in November, began her career as a legal secretary after leaving school at 15.

Brandis remarked this may seem “an unpromising start for a future chief justice” but praised her “steely determination” as she completed secondary school at night.

Brandis noted that, when Kiefel was called to the bar in 1975, at the age of 21, it was a “characteristically brave move” because there were “hardly any women in practice at the bar in Brisbane”.

Kiefel’s appointment caps a career of firsts: she was the first woman in Queensland to be appointed Queen’s counsel, in 1987, and the first to serve on the supreme court of Queensland, in 1993.

Brandis acknowledged that Kiefel had been “the first woman to occupy a particular office” at several points in her career. “But your success has had nothing to do with your gender and everything to do with your intelligence, diligence and skill,” he said.

Kiefel told the ceremony that judges served not “for the purpose of personal acknowledgement or the enhancement of reputation”.

Kiefel spoke about the importance of the court’s role upholding the constitution and its responsibility to respectfully declare when legislative or executive power had been exceeded.

She said wryly that she would bask in the praise she had received at the ceremony because it “could in the future be replaced by criticism from other quarters”.

Kiefel spoke of her personal connection to three of the six chief justices since she started her legal career, including her friendship with French.

“The chief justices who have preceded me have been persons of the highest integrity and ability,” she said. “I have been given a great responsibility. With the cooperation of my colleagues, I trust that I shall discharge it well and justify the confidence that has been reposed in me.”

In a lecture in 2014 to the International Congress of Comparative Law in Vienna, Kiefel said there were benefits to the increasing number of women judges, including that women would be encouraged to remain in the legal profession and senior women could mentor their junior colleagues.

“In a wider societal sense, these appointments facilitate the acceptance of women as persons having public authority. The importance of this acceptance should not be undervalued.”

When French retired, effective at midnight on Sunday, and Kiefel was elevated to the chief justice role, James Edelman was appointed to the vacancy. Edelman will be sworn in on Monday afternoon.</s>Canberra, Jan 30 (IANS) Australia’s first female Chief Justice of the High Court was officially sworn in at a ceremony in Canberra on Monday, a media report said.

Susan Kiefel, who replaces outgoing Chief Justice Robert French, is the first woman to hold the position in the High Court’s 113-year history.

In a speech following the ceremony, Kiefel described her appointment as a watershed moment for women in law.

“The appointment of more women to this court recognises that there are now women who have the necessary legal ability and experience as well as the personal qualities to be a justice of this court,” Kiefel added.

“There seems no reason to think that that situation will not be maintained in the future. It may well improve,” she said.

Kiefel was sworn in by Australia’s Attorney-General George Brandis, who said her story was an inspiration –“story to inspire women and men alike”.

Kiefel’s appointment garnered mainstream attention in 2016, not only because she was the first woman to be appointed to the role, but she was also a high school dropout at 15 years.

Studying law part-time, she eventually gained admission to the Queensland Bar in 1975, and served as a High Court Justice from 2007 until her appointment as Chief Justice in November, 2016.</s>On Monday, February 13th, Ben Steelman of the StarNews will talk with author Susan Bishop Crispell about her debut novel The Secret Ingredient of Wishes. Join us for the conversation in the MC Erny Gallery at WHQR.

About the Author and Her Work:

Susan Bishop Crispell is a graduate of The University of North Carolina - Wilmington with a B.F.A. in creative writing. Susan lives and writes near Wilmington, NC with her husband, Mark, and their two literary-named cats.

Aside from writing, Susan fills her time swooning over fictional boys and baked goods and watching quirky TV shows, most of which got canceled way before their time. She is the author of The Secret Ingredient of Wishes and the upcoming novel Dreaming in Chocolate.</s>Made entirely from deconstructed men’s shirts rescued from thrift shops, Susan’s fibre work is an attempt to raise awareness about the paradoxical cycle of exploitive garment manufacture coupled with our enormous problem of textile. Feb 26-Mar 10, reception 1-4 pm Feb 26.</s>Finally, some good news for women (and boy, do we need it). On Monday, Susan Keifel was sworn in as Australia’s first female Chief Justice of the High Court — the highest judicial office in the country.

Women have sat on the bench since 1987, but Chief Justice Keifel is the first woman to hold the top role.

Keifel was nominated by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who called her story “an inspiration.” She dropped out of school at age 15 and began working as a legal secretary. When she did return to school and obtain her law degree, she started her career in Queensland, one of Australia’s more conservative states, at a time when few women were practicing law. In 1993, she became the first woman to serve as a justice on Queensland’s highest court.

A woman's place is on the bench of the High Court

Unlike the highly partisan nature of U.S. court picks, the opposition Labor Party welcomed her nomination.

The U.S. is yet to see a female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, though there are three women serving as associate justices: Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. All three were nominated by Democrats. Trump promised throughout the campaign that he would nominate a pro-life justice to fill the current vacancy— which President Obama was inexcusably prevented from filling by the GOP-majority Senate — leading to the potential overturn of Roe v. Wade. Trump will be announcing his nominee tonight, but unsurprisingly neither of the front-runners are women.



It also seems unlikely, with Trump at the reigns, that any of the current women justices would be promoted to Chief Justice should the role become available.

In 2014, Chief Justice Keifel spoke in a lecture of the importance of seeing women in roles such as this. “In a wider societal sense, these appointments facilitate the acceptance of women as persons having public authority," she said. "The importance of this acceptance should not be undervalued.”

I’ll just leave this here:

Hey, Successful Female Politician: Why You No Bear Children?

Hillary Clinton's Abortion Comments Show Exactly Why We Need A Female President

Donald Trump Makes It Very, VERY Clear That He's Coming For Your Reproductive Rights</s>GREENVILLE, Pennsylvania – Susan O. Peachey, age 17, of Kinsman Rd., W. Salem Twp., Greenville, passed away Tuesday morning, January 31, 2017 in UPMC Children’s Hospital Pittsburgh, after a courageous battle with Cystic Fibrosis.

She was born in Summerset County on October 28, 1999 to Olen S. and Barbara Ann (Bender) Peachey.

Susan was a member of Stateline Amish Church (W. Salem Twp.) and she loved to babysit her nieces and nephews.

Survivors include her parents at home; four brothers, Marvin and Mary Peachey and their children, Ruth, Katie, Samuel and Rebecca of Somerset, Ohio, Mark and Sarah May Peachey and their child, Micah of Jamestown, Elmo and Antoinette Peachey and their child, Kaleb of Greensburg, Indiana and Harvey Peachey at home; sister, Fannie Fisher and her husband James of Jamestown; maternal grandparents, Harvey and Ellie Bender of Meyersdale, Pennsylvania; uncles, aunts and many cousins and friends.

Calling hours will be on Thursday, February 2 all day at Sam Weaver Residence 216 Stateline Rd., Pennsylvania.

A funeral service will be on Friday, February 2 at Sam Weaver Residence 216 Stateline Rd., Jamestown, Pennsylvania with Bishop Joe Hostetler officiating.

A burial will be in Stateline Amish Cemetery in Greenville, Pennsylvania.

Arrangements have been entrusted to Loutzenhiser-Jordan Funeral Home and Cremation Services, Inc. 366-368 S. Main St. Greenville, Pennsylvania.</s>Jonathan Whowell has been sworn-in as the permanent chief of the Plano Police Department.

Whowell, a 19-year veteran of the Plano Police Department, had been appointed as interim chief following the retirement of former police chief Steve Eaves July 1.

Alderman unanimously voted to make Whowell the permanent chief at an annual salary of $94,103 plus benefits. The meeting was attended by over 80 friends, family, colleagues and citizens.

Whowell said "this is the best thing that ever happened to me and I couldn't be happier. This is such an honor and privilege."

Mayor Bob Hausler said he was happy to see Whowell made the permanent chief.

"I feel that Jonathan Whowell has done a great job as interim chief," he said. "He has the same vision that I have for the police department and he will continue to make our police department number one in the county and the state. He works for all of our residents."

During his youth in the Ravenswood area in Chicago, Whowell said he always wanted to be a public servant and help people. When his wife took a job teaching in Oswego that brought them to Kendall County, he ultimately was hired by the Plano Police Department.

Whowell said "a police chief is only as good as the people who work for him" and he wants to focus on enhancing the standard operating procedures for the department.

Susan Thanepohn is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News</s>Canada News Wire

 News release

 The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Woman and Girls is pleased to announce that Susan Vella will be the Lead Commission Counsel and will build the National Inquiry’s trauma-informed legal team. She is a pioneer in advancing claims on behalf of survivors of sexual and institutionalized abuse, and sexual harassment in the civil litigation context for over 25 years.

Susan also represents Indigenous persons who are victims of sexual trauma, and Indigenous organizations and First Nations in relation to various matters. Susan received the Law Society Medal and the Advocates’ Society Award of Justice, in recognition of her work on behalf of survivors of sexual violence.

Susan has appeared at all levels of court in relation to civil litigation involving sexual violence, including at the Supreme Court of Canada in relation to the landmark sexual abuse vicarious liability decision of Bazley v. Curry.

Susan has a number of publications on various aspects relative to the issue of pursuing civil justice on behalf of survivors of sexual violence, including co-authoring the textbook, Civil Liability for Sexual Abuse and Violence in Canada.

Susan is a member of the Ontario Civil Rules Committee. Most recently Susan was Counsel to the Ontario Minister of Health and Long Term Care’s Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Abuse of Patients.

She was also Commission Counsel to the Ipperwash Inquiry, which examined the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Dudley George by a member of the Ontario Provincial Police. She was called to the Ontario bar in 1988.

Susan comes to the National Inquiry from Rochon Genova LLP where she is senior counsel.
Susan Kiefel is sworn in as the first female Chief Justice of Australia.