Deborah Hill Cone: To err is human, to judge, risky

I wonder how Bill Wilson slept last night. Does he zonk out exhausted and then wake at 2am greeted by the muttering "reception committee" of critics in his head?

Is there a moment when he forgets about Saxmere and Rich Hill Stud and then reality crashes back in with a sickening tsunami of cortisol? I wonder if he has lost weight. Or if he goes out for lunch then has to vomit. Discreetly. Because he's a Supreme Court judge, and all he needs is a bodily fluids scandal of Andrew Williams proportions.

Or maybe he is just so tough he fights off a tiny comma of nausea after his third cup of coffee and copes by imagining sticking pins into a Ted Thomas doll.

He may have resigned by the time you read this. But after poring over the Judicial Conduct Commissioner's report - with an entirely open mind - I am not at all convinced that he should. There are complexities not reflected in the predictable public outrage over his supposed breach of judicial ethics.

The notion of being "beholden" is a subtle one. And things often look different in hindsight than they did at the time.

Lawyers - and judges - might be fastidious in their work lives but quite eccentric and rumpty in their personal affairs. Often this yin-and-yang work-mania juxtaposed with ramshackle personal lives feed off one another in a pleasingly efficient way.

It's a variant on the absent-minded professor syndrome. Super brains can't devote themselves to esoteric metaphysical questions at the same time as picking up their dirty socks and balancing their own chequebooks.

Thus, it is completely believable that Justice Wilson and Alan Galbraith simply had a she'll-be-right approach to who owed what to their company, with a vague notion there would be a wash-up some time in the future.

Thus, it is completely believable that Justice Wilson would not feel beholden to Galbraith or even know whether he was financially indebted at the time of the vital hearing of the Saxmere case.

Later, when the conflict of interest case was heard, the true state of affairs was revealed but it was too late. I could see how, if you spent your days dealing with rarefied points of law, you might form the view that the disparity in shareholder contributions to Rich Hill did not constitute being "beholden" since Galbraith couldn't claim personally against the judge for what was owed.

I didn't think that former judge Ted Thomas came out of it all that well either. After reading his complaint, I couldn't help but wonder whether it was just an attempt to appear righteous.

What I didn't learn from the report - and am only gratuitously curious about - are the links between some of those involved. Given the size of our judicial system, it's not surprising that Sue Grey, the lawyer against Alan Galbraith in the Saxmere case, has had past dealings with Justice Wilson.

Her partner, former Green MP Ian Ewen-Street, stood down, grudgingly, from the then Labour Government's scampi inquiry in 2003 after the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries raised questions about the pair having a romantic relationship when Grey was acting for a scampi complainant. The lawyer for MAF was one Bill Wilson, QC. That's how close everything is in our little parish. Bring back the Privy Council.

I can understand that the complainants want to be sure our bench is robust, not just a chummy clique. Fair enough. But if those legitimate concerns encourage a braying lynchmob to hound a judge out of office, that won't instill confidence in our justice system either. Then none of us will sleep well at night.

dhc@deborahhillcone.com