Meet the woman flagged by Albanese government to lead antisemitism royal commission
Loading
He said his time at Redfern Law Center was spent “representing the poor, campaigning for prison reform, marching against injustice and somehow remaining the most respected demonstrator in the crowd”.
A profile of Bell at the University of Wollongong said Bell represented dozens of people arrested at the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 1978 and produced a video for the following year’s parade advising people how to avoid arrest.
The daughter of a navy captain, Bell grew up partly at Sydney’s Garden Island naval base. John Bell told Australian He said that as a child he was “a bit impetuous and always had a very inquisitive mind”.
In 2009, Bell became the fourth woman appointed to the Supreme Court and the court’s 48th justice.
She later quipped that entering the legal profession at a time when women were unrepresented on the bench “had the capacity to make women lawyers feel a little exotic, even if they weren’t told they were go-go dancers.”
At the time, University of NSW professor George Williams said he was known for having a strong sense of social justice, making him a suitable replacement for Chief Justice Michael Kirby, who was known for his interest in human rights. He said he was “one of the most experienced and respected criminal lawyers.”
Bell served on the Supreme Court for 12 years and is no stranger to presiding over royal commissions, government inquiries or a religiously motivated attack case.
Bell assisted the Wood Royal Commission into NSW police corruption as counsel between 1994 and 1997, and led the inquiry in 2022. Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s scandalous self-appointment He appealed to various ministries and subsequently said that their actions were “corrosive to trust in the government”.
Virginia Bell speaks at an abortion rights rally in 1994, before becoming a judge. Credit: Barry Newberry/Fairfax Media
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was “an outstanding person with an extensive and varied legal career” when he appointed him to head the inquiry.
Bell was on the bench in 2014 when the High Court rejected an appeal by two men who planned to shoot as many Australian soldiers as possible at an army base in Sydney because they believed Islam was under attack from the West.
Judge Virginia Bell at her official farewell ceremony as she leaves the NSW Court of Appeal for the Supreme Court. Credit: Lindsay Moller
According to SBS news at the time, the pair were convicted in the Supreme Court of Victoria of conspiring to carry out a terrorist attack.
Chief judge Robert French, who publicly called for a royal commission in the wake of the murders of Bell and Bondi, confirmed the verdict despite objections from lawyers, although he thought it should have been clear that the jury had found that one of the men had acted recklessly when he asked whether a planned attack on a sheikh would be in line with Islamic teaching.
