So the High Court finally has its first woman chief justice. Mainstream media and ministers' PR spinsters have seized upon this as a remarkable achievement for the legal profession or political incumbent or both, and as 'a fair go' for the empowered woman of 2016.
Susan Kiefel's attainment of her highest goal should be recognised as no such lesser win. It is a right and proper recognition of the suitability of a solidly trained and experienced lawyer. It is also the product of this individual human being's utterly true commitment to the law and its customs, protocols and conventions.
The chief justice of the High Court represents the greatest achievement of the Common Law: the creation of the rule of law, and the stability of our representative democracy. She is even more important to this solidity than any prime minister, governor-general or populist hero. She represents the rule of reason and precedent and hard won wisdom and sensibility.
This 'rule' of law is commonly misunderstood as akin to a regime of implacable 'law and order' which provides an assurance that malfeasants will suffer apprehension and punishment for their lack of respect for authority. The rule of law is not the rule of violence or suppression. If we cannot disturb the peace in myriad ways a society will not grow and adapt and survive sometimes radical change.
The rule of law is a once-radical principle that no power can never be absolute, that all who have it must account for the use of state power, and that however imperfect there are checks and balances.
In a western representative democracy the three-wheel interlocking of law-making, law interpretation and application, and the execution or management of governance means each may restrain, inhibit or call each of the others to account.
It has been said that the point of democracy is actually to stop everybody talking too much. Moderation is required in all things, and the role of an independent judiciary and legal profession is tremendously important in holding back the others' excesses.
The people may desire, in uncertain times, a 'strong' leader to take care of our interests and to protect us from the achievement of unwise individual aims that endanger the common good. Human beings are of such a nature that 'It behoves men and women to sin'. Nobody willingly shares power, and none likes to be reminded that what is best for the powerful is not necessarily best