REPRESENTATIONS OF JUSTICE
A Photographic Essay
in Two Parts
Part One- Introduction- The Hon M E J Black
AC (The Chief Justice has adapted for his introduction to this journal his speech
opening the Representing Justice Conference in Wollongong on 26 June 1998)
Part Two- Design of the Commonwealth Law
Courts Building, Melbourne - Paul Katsieris
INTRODUCTION
The Hon M E J Black AC, Chief
Justice of the Federal Court of Australia
I am very pleased to introduce this
first edition of the Journal of Social Change and Critical Inquiry on a
topic that is surely of the highest interest and importance to all
concerned with the administration of justice and with the role of
architecture in society. If, as I believe, architecture - that most
visible and enduring of all the arts - is both a reflection of our
values and times, and capable of leading us towards the achievement of
our visions, then the architecture of a courthouse is a matter of the
greatest significance.
It is axiomatic, but good to repeat from time
to time, that the impartial adjudication of disputes and the other
elements of the rule of law form the cornerstone of a free and
democratic society. If public architecture is to contribute to the
workings of that society by doing more than merely providing walls and a
roof - that is, by fulfilling its own honourable functions of reflecting
our values and helping to realise our visions - then the building of a
new courthouse must be treated as being at least as important as the
building of a new parliament. In fact, as a subject for discourse at a
university, the architecture of courthouses is attributed much greater
practical importance than the architecture of parliaments, because
courthouses are built in far greater numbers.
Go to top of page
The High Court of Australia in Canberra is, of
course, an outstanding example of modern courthouse design in our
national capital. It is important to recognise, however, that
courthouses are a physical manifestation of the legal system throughout
the entire country, and not merely the focus for that system in the
capital cities. Court design is of pervasive importance.
The European settlers of the United States,
Canada, New Zealand and of our country understood very well the
importance of public architecture and its symbolism. In my own State,
Victoria, their legacy can be seen in the public buildings of cities
such as Bendigo and Ballarat, in the Supreme Court of Victoria in
Melbourne, and in the other great public buildings in that city. It is
also powerfully evident in smaller provincial towns such as Beechworth
and Clunes, where the school, the churches, the shire hall, the post and
telegraph office and the courthouse still form an impressive and
cohesive nineteenth century core. So it is too in the United States,
most obviously to me in the small towns of New England.
In Australia, courthouses have often reflected the
classical ideals of government architects, including the sovereignty of
the Crown and the authority - even the majesty - of the law. They have
also reflected, with one or two exceptions, the colonial inability -
whether financial or emotional in origin - to come to terms with large
interior spaces. Many of the older courthouses, although fine works in
themselves, have had no distinctive Australian element. Others have,
but not of the Australia of today. Those buildings were constructed in
times when the authority of the courts, derived from the British crown,
was unquestioned, and when the judicial officer was an object of
reverence by reason of the fact that he and it was always he then -
was a judicial officer. Australian courthouses in the past rarely
reflected concern for the comfort of the public or its access to
justice.
This was the situation as late, perhaps,
as the 1970s; but contrast the world of the late 1990s. We understand
today that sovereignty ultimately rests with the Australian people. It
is with their consent that the law is made and administered, for it is
upon them that the Constitution rests and only with their authority that
it can be changed. The courts no longer are revered for their own sake,
and nor would they wish to be. Institutions in society, including the
courts, are subject to scrutiny and criticism as never before and, as a
result, are publicly accountable as never before.
Go to top of page
To this I would add another point. The judge of
today has a greatly enlarged responsibility for the functioning of the
legal system, even though he or she has no control over the extent of
funding required to operate the system. Thus all courts are assuming a
greater responsibility for the management of cases that come before
them. In addition, all federal courts are now fully self-administered,
which means that their responsibility extends beyond the running of
cases to every aspect of their administration, including the care and
maintenance of their courthouses. They are also responsible for
managing their staff, for workplace relations within their courts, for
adapting technology to the legal process, and for generally keeping the
system sensitive and adapted to the needs of the times. Overall, they
are expected to operate with increased efficiency but also to offer
greater accessibility. All the while, the central values of impartial
justice according to law must be maintained. In this greatly changed world, then, how does one go
about creating a courthouse worthy of a democratic society at the end of
the twentieth century? To my mind a vision is an indispensable
pre-requisite for such a courthouse. By "vision" I mean a shared vision
of both the judges and staff who occupy the courthouse, and of the
Government that builds it. The vision of the architects is also
indispensable, but comes a little later.
With the new Commonwealth courthouse in Melbourne there
was, for a time, a danger that there would be no shared vision, no
agreement on fundamentals and, indeed, no courthouse at all. For a time
in 1991 to 1993, what was put forward as a substitute for a
purpose-built courthouse was a converted office building. The symbolism
of that proposal was, of course, atrocious, not to mention its
functional deficiencies. Happily, however, the vision of a real
courthouse was shared by successive Attorneys-General of the
Commonwealth and by senior officers of the Attorney-General‘s
Department. The Commonwealth‘s court construction policy therefore
survived, but it is only through persistence and the driving force of a
shared vision that a great new federal courthouse has now been built in
Melbourne.
Go to
top of page
It may be said that this means no more than that there should
be a shared vision that courts are fundamental to our democratic
process, and that they require purpose-built courthouses rather than
second-rate conversions of office buildings. This is important, but it
does not answer the question of what sort of building a court should
have. It is here that there needs to be a shared vision. From the
earliest days of the new Melbourne courthouse there was such a vision
and, as our files dating from as early as October 1991 reveal, it was a
vision that was shared by both the Commonwealth and the courts. That
vision was above all one of light and accessibility, and of collegiality
within the Court. It was a vision that the new court should be
accessible and understandable, and that it should encourage the public
to witness the workings of the system of justice. That vision remained
strong and constant for the year or more during which the project stood
abandoned before it was then revived.
A defining moment in the development of the Melbourne
building occurred in March 1995, when the architects, officers of the
Attorney-General’s Department, judges, the project manager and others
met to work out what we all wanted and how it was to be achieved. It
was a truly cooperative enterprise conducted over two days at a retreat
in the Dandenong Ranges. The role of government here was critical, but
I can report that the only restraining aspects of its involvement were
well-timed reminders that there was no possibility of obtaining more
money for the project than Cabinet had already allocated. What emerged
was a more broadly shared vision and an outline design concept of a
building that would reflect the ideals of federal courts as they move
into the next century.
Before concluding, let me tell you of that vision as it
emerges from the minutes of what was rather prosaically called the
"value management study" of 22 and 23 March 1995. It was "to create a
court building that had a symbolism reflecting the importance of the law
but also reflecting the accessibility of the law." We wanted to create
a courthouse that reflected the place of law in a free society. The
courthouse had to be functionally efficient, but it also had to have an
ambience reflecting an openness and friendliness of use. It had to
reflect light as well as concepts of reconciliation and calm. It was to
be dignified but it was not to be intimidating, and certainly not
pretentious. It was to have a visible relationship with the outside
world, a sense of permanence, and it was to be Australian in concept and
materials. It was also to have functional objectives which included
ecological soundness, energy efficiency and quality. All this was to be
achieved within the constraints of an unalterable budget.
Go to top of page
The emphasis on light is of course both
immensely practical and highly symbolic. Light should play a central
conceptual role in courthouse design because, just as light reveals
architectural form, it also makes justice visible and, by being visible,
more accessible. Unlike most of the great nineteenth century court
buildings, in the new Melbourne building the law is not hidden. On the
contrary, the building opens the law to all and, by doing so, opens it
to scrutiny, revealing the system of justice as accountable to the
people it serves. We may also reflect that light is symbolic of truth.
How far this is from the sombre authority of earlier court buildings,
and how much more effective!
The symbolic effect of light in making the law
more visible, and therefore more accessible and accountable, is enhanced
by its practical effect in increasing the building’s physical
accessibility and openness. Thus light operates at a practical level to
open the building to those inside it as well as to the outside world.
The court is not excluded from the world, nor is the world excluded from
the court or the people in it, who can still see the City, the Flagstaff
Gardens and the mountain ranges to the east and north of Melbourne.
Importantly, and not by accident, those views are shared by users and
staff of the court alike. Finally, there is symbolism in the innovation
of the building both architectural and technical in nature - such as
the use of mirrors to bring the views of the Flagstaff Gardens to those
parts of the building that overlook an office block.
True to our visions, the building does reflect
notions of accessibility and visibility - both literal and metaphoric -
whilst at the same time drawing attention to the authority of the law.
But it does not do this in any monumental, aggressive or authoritarian
way; it does it in gentler ways, such as rendering the text of the
essential elements of the Constitution as a veil etched on selected
windows.
Plainly, then,
courthouse architecture is a subject of the greatest interest and
importance, and it is clear already that this edition will be one of
great interest and importance.
Go to Part Two- Design of the Commonwealth Law
Courts Building, Melbourne - Paul Katsieris
Go to top of page
