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Justice, 4 August 1970 to 11 February 1981
Chief Justice, 12 February 1981 to 5 February 1987
Harry Gibbs (1917-2005), Australia’s eighth High Court Chief Justice, was known for his unassuming and approachable manner, clarity of writing, and powerful intellect ‘enhanced and broadened by deep learning in the humanities’.1
Gibbs was born in Sydney but raised in Ipswich, Queensland, where his father was a prominent solicitor. He attended the University of Queensland, graduating with first-class honours in English literature (1937) and Law (1939), and co-winning the University Medal. He was admitted to the Queensland Bar in the same year.2
As an army officer in World War II, Gibbs attained the rank of major and was mentioned in despatches for service in New Guinea. He married Muriel Dunn in 1944 and they had four children. Returning to the Bar in 1946, he excelled in ‘appellate, constitutional and opinion work’ and lectured at the University of Queensland before taking silk in 1957.3
In 1961, Gibbs began his judicial career with the Supreme Court of Queensland. During this time, he served as Royal Commissioner for the Commission of Inquiry into police conduct and chairman of the Committee of Inquiry into Expansion of the Australian Sugar Industry.4 In 1967, Gibbs was appointed to the Federal Court of Bankruptcy and the ACT Supreme Court.5
Following Justice Frank Kitto’s retirement in 1970, Gibbs was appointed to the High Court.6 Gibbs’s judicial style was cautious and he ‘did not regard the Court as a vehicle for major social change’.7 He instead emphasised the value of precedent, declaring that ‘[n]o Justice is entitled to ignore the decisions and reasoning of his predecessors, and to arrive at his own decision as though the pages of the law reports were blank’.8
Accepting the promotion to Chief Justice in 1981, his six-year term as Chief ‘bridged the transition from the more conservative Barwick Court to the more liberal Mason Court’.9 Dubbed ‘Sir Harry the Healer’ by the press, he brought a sense of calm in the aftermath of the ‘Murphy Affair’.10 As a staunch defender of states’ rights, Gibbs was ‘frequently in a minority’ during the 1980s expansion of Commonwealth powers.11 Most notable was the expansion of the external affairs power in Koowarta and Tasmanian Dams, and corporations’ power in Actors & Announcers Equity Association v Fontana Films and Fencott v Muller.12
In accepting the promotion to Chief Justice, he became subject to the mandatory retirement age introduced in the 1977 referendum and from which he was previously exempt as a current sitting justice. In retirement, he chaired a review of Commonwealth criminal laws, and served as chair of the Samuel Griffith Society.13 Gibbs died on 25 June 2005 and was remembered by Justice Michael Kirby as ‘a most notable leader and example in the law and in Australian civic life’.14 Commemorating his judicial service, the Harry Gibbs Legal Heritage Centre was established at the Queensland Supreme Court Library.
Judy Cassab AO CBE
Renowned portrait and landscape artist Judy Cassab (1920-2015) was born in Vienna to Jewish Hungarian parents. She started painting at a young age; however, her formal studies were cut short by the German Occupation. Immediately after the war, she resumed studying painting at the Budapest Academy until 1949. In 1951, after the trauma of losing her close family in the Holocaust, Cassab herself evaded persecution, migrating to Australia with her husband and their two sons. They settled in Sydney where she established herself as a portraitist. She painted many significant figures, including royalty, and won the Archibald Prize for her portraits of Stanislaus Rapotec (1960) and Margo Lewers (1967), becoming the first woman to be awarded the prize twice. She held many solo exhibitions both in Australia and internationally. Cassab was made a CBE in 1969, and an AO in 1988. From 1980, she was a trustee of the Art Gallery of NSW and in 2011 was awarded Hungary’s Gold Cross of Merit. Her work is represented in all major national and state galleries across Australia as well as in public collections in Europe.15
Harry Talbot Gibbs
by Judy Cassab
1982
oil on canvas
116 x 97.7 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, High Court of Australia
References
1. G Brandis, ‘Adjournment: Sir Harry Gibbs’, Senate, Debates, 18 August 2005, p. 156.
2. D Jackson and J Priest, ‘Gibbs, Harry Talbot’ in T Blackshield, M Coper and G Williams, eds, The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia, Oxford University Press, accessed2 November 2021.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. M Kirby, ‘Kitto, Frank Walters’, in Blackshield et al., op. cit.
7. Jackson and Priest op. cit.
8. J Gibbs, ‘Queensland v Commonwealth’ [1977], High Court of Australia, HCA 60, accessed 25 March 2021.
9. A Twomey, ‘Gibbs Court’, in Blackshield et al., op. cit.
10. Priest, op. cit.
11. Twomey, op. cit.
12. ‘Koowarta v Bjelke-Petersen’ [1982], High Court of Australia, HCA 27; 153 CLR 168; ‘The Commonwealth of Australia v Tasmania’ [1983], High Court of Australia, HCA 21; 158 CLR1; ‘Actors and Announcers Equity Association v Fontana Films Pty. Ltd’ [1982], High Court of Australia, HCA 23; 150 CLR; ‘Fencott v Muller’ [1983], High Court of Australia,, HCA 12; 152 CLR 570. Websites accessed 29 September 2021.
13. Priest, op. cit.
14. M Kirby, ‘Tribute to the Right Hon. Sir Harry Gibbs GCMG AC KBE’, University of Queensland, Sir Harry Gibbs National Moot Competition, 10 October 2005, accessed 20 September 2021.
15. ‘Artist profile: Judy Cassab’, Art Gallery of NSW; ‘Judy Cassab AO CBE’, National Portrait Gallery; ‘Award-Winning Artist and Holocaust Survivor Judy Cassab Dead at 95’, Artnet News; B Niall, Judy Cassab: An Australian Story, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2007; ‘Cassab, Judy’, A McCulloch, S McCulloch and E McCulloch Childs, eds, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press, 2006, p. 314. Websites accessed 25 March 2021.