Sexual harassment is alarmingly common throughout the legal profession in South Australia, according to a new report that details an assault by a former judge and harassing texts from a magistrate who told a lawyer while presiding over a case that he imagined her “kneeling between his legs at the bench”.
A review of sexual harassment in Victorian courts sparked by the findings of an investigation into former High Court Justice Dyson Heydon has found a culture that can “normalise or ignore” bad behaviour by judges and others, with more than two dozen court staff reporting they had experienced sexual harassment, many on numerous occasions.
The Attorney-General has appointed three new judges to the busy Federal Circuit Court, including the barrister who represented Bega in a high-stakes trade mark lawsuit brought by a rival.
Barristers and legal experts are calling on the new Attorney-General to actively commit to gender diversity when she begins to make appointments to the courts, as the federal government’s promise to put its decision making through a women’s “lens” raises hopes of more female judicial appointments to correct the imbalance on the bench.