Should Judges Join In? A Normative Study of Joint Judgments in Selected Australian Intermediate Appellate Courts

Abstract

In the light of both the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia Susan Kiefel’s extra-judicial comments on the ‘institutional responsibility’ of appellate courts to decide cases by joint judgment where possible, and literature that indicates an increase in the expression of reasons through joint judgment in the High Court of Australia since the beginning of former Chief Justice Robert French’s tenure, there has been much debate on the desirability of joint judgments. In this article, I present empirical information on selected New South Wales and federal intermediate appellate court judgment writing practices from 2009 to 2019. I do so to address former President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal Margaret Beazley’s ‘dalliance on a curiosity’1 concerning both joint judgment trends and whether Australian intermediate appellate courts should, given the example set by certain Justices of the High Court, preference joined reasons to separate individual concurrences.