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Statement on Decision of CI Government to Appeal the Chief Justice’s Ruling

Category: Press Release

Yesterday morning (3 April 2019) the Hon Premier indicated that the Government would be appealing the Hon Chief Justice’s recent decision legalising same-sex marriage.  Extraordinarily, the Hon Premier admitted that the decision to appeal had been taken the previous day “based on the Executive Summary of the Court’s judgment” and not having analysed the full judgment.

The Executive Summary of the judgment made it abundantly clear that the Constitution left the Court with no choice but to make the decision that it did.  The judgment was based on settled legal principles established at the highest level, in the Privy Council and throughout the common law world.  The Commission has previously noted the importance of reading judgments fully before commenting on them (see press statement of 23 June 2016 on this very issue).  The importance of reading a full judgment before committing hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money to appellate litigation is particularly significant. 

Read the full release here.