ONE of these Victorian Supreme Court judges is described as “the nation’s greatest authority on criminal law”, the other worked as a Labor Party staffer. One of them ruled in favour of releasing an innocent priest after examining the evidence, the other ignored critical evidence and kept him locked up in 23-hour a day solitary confinement.
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"There is, to my mind, a significant possibility that the applicant in this case may not have committed these offences"
Mark Weinberg has been described by legal academic Mirko Bagaric as “the nation’s greatest authority on criminal law”.
Weinberg was dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Melbourne until 1985. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1986 and in 1988 became Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
After being appointed to the Federal Court in 1998, Weinberg held appointments at the Federal Police Disciplinary Tribunal, the Supreme Court of Fiji, the Supreme Court of the ACT and chief justice of the Supreme Court of Norfolk Island.
He resigned from the Federal Court in 2008 to take up office as a judge of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria.
"I’m no criminal lawyer”
Chris Maxwell was principal private secretary to ALP Senator Gareth Evans from 1981. He left in 1983 to become a barrister in Victoria and was variously reader for Kenneth Hayne QC and reader for Ross Robson QC.
Maxwell was a Victorian Legal Aid Commissioner for seven years from 1986 and also a member of the board of Liberty Victoria for six years, two of them as president from 2000.
He appeared with Greens Party candidate Julian Burnside QC in the Tampa refugee case, and was then famously but unsuccessfully countersued (as a board member of Liberty Victoria) by the Commonwealth of Australia for costs.
He has admitted he’s not an expert in criminal law.PC
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