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Some judges carrying philosophical baggage: Callinan

ABC online  23 November 2007

Retired High Court judge Ian Callinan criticised some aspects of his former profession at a function in Brisbane today.

Mr Callinan accused fellow judges of carrying "philosophical baggage" after being appointed an honorary fellow of the Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia.

"If a judge is bringing to a constitutional question his philosophical baggage - and he or she probably will have some sort of philosophical baggage - there is an obligation to make it clear what that philosophy is and to be absolutely candid about it," he said.

"When I was at the bar, I sometimes thought, and not just in constitutional cases, that judges were not always as candid about their real reasons for deciding a case as they might have been."

He also said High Court judgements were "too long, too wordy and too numerous" and said cases were "taking too long and costing too much money".

Mr Callinan was appointed to the High Court in 1998 and retired a day before his 70th birthday in September.

He was then appointed to head the commission of inquiry into the outbreak of equine influenza.

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