Speech at the Ceremonial Sitting of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia to welcome the Hon. Justice Yaseen Shariff
19 December 2023
CEREMONIAL SITTING OF THE FULL COURT
OF THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
TO WELCOME THE HON. JUSTICE YASEEN SHARIFF
Speech by Peter Dunning KC, President of the Australian Bar Association
May it please the Court, Chief Justice, Justice Shariff, Justices of the Federal Court, Justice Gleeson, distinguished guests.
It is my privilege and pleasure in equal measure, your Honour, to express on behalf of the Bar nationally its congratulations on your Honour’s fine appointment to this Court.
Your Honour’s broad practice at the Bar, including employment, industrial law, corporations, equity, professional negligence, disciplinary and regulatory work equipped your Honour well for the discharge of the important function with which you have been entrusted.
Likewise, your personal qualities of decency, hard work and companionability will serve this Court well. In doing so, I acknowledge the First Nations People and the special role that Courts everywhere have in bringing peace to us as a nation in that regard and the particular role that this Court has in acknowledging those people who have been the custodians of this land from time immemorial.
Your Honour, to be appointed to a national Court is the height of professional distinction, and hard earned in your Honour’s case. Your Honour should feel justifiably proud in that regard. Likewise, one does not achieve success like today without the love and the support of friends and family, which your Honour has plainly had. Those friends and family should also take justifiable pride in today’s appointment.
Whilst it is appropriate that the national body of the Bar recognise your Honour’s appointment today, it is your home Bar, the Bar of New South Wales, that ought to speak in detail to your Honour’s many qualities. And, on that note, I will pass to my friend, Ms Bashir SC, to do exactly that.
May it please the Court.
13 September 2023