NSW Bar Renews Push to Reintroduce Queen's Counsel

Monday 25 May 2015 @ 1.17 p.m. | Judiciary, Legal Profession & Procedure | Legal Research

A push to reinstate the title of Queen's Counsel (QC) for senior barristers in NSW has gathered momentum after the Bar Association resolved to lobby the state government over the issue.

Background to the QC Title Debate

After a report was commissioned in February 2014, titled "Report to the NSW Bar Council on the Suitability of Approaching the Attorney General for Support for the Establishment of a System for the Appointment of Queen's Counsel" and delivered in April 2014, the NSW Bar Association decided not to proceed with the issue, despite the title already being reinstated in both Queensland and Victoria.

The report determined that any process for appointing QC's should build upon the current process through the following features:

  • The model should maintain the Bar's exclusive function of determining, by reference to the criteria in the Silk Selection Protocol, those candidates whose standing and achievements justify recognition as Senior Counsel; and
  • The model would be on the express basis that a necessary precondition for an individual to apply to be appointed as Queen's Counsel would be to have attained the rank of Senior Counsel in NSW.

The non-royalist title of Senior Counsel (SC) was introduced in 1993 in NSW, along with a new scheme for appointing silks. Giving silks the option of using the title of QC would require a change of legislation in NSW.

The Current Debate

After a change in leadership last November 2014, the Bar Council resolved to bring up the issue again and after a vote on 14 May 2015, decided that a system of uniformity should exist across all barristers irrespective of State borders. In the meantime, the Bar Council said all NSW barristers who are appointed silks should be allowed to elect to "use the title Queen's Counsel ... or King's Counsel as the case may be".

Asked about reintroducing the title last month, Attorney-General Gabrielle Upton told the Sydney Morning Herald she was "happy to consider any idea" but she would "need to understand the rationale for it and how that serves the system of justice well".

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