Labor gets it right with latest High Court pick

Gaudron looked forward to the day that women held sway, but she did say that true equality would not be reached until the court had seven female judges. Only that would make up for the previous imbalance.

During the consultation process, numerous people urged Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to go for someone with extensive criminal law experience. Or someone from a state court, given the clear bias towards Federal Court judges over the past decade. Or someone from any other state than NSW.

The AG even admitted at the announcement that there was pressure in the cabinet for someone from South Australia. A Federal Court colleague of Justice Jagot, Wendy Abraham, was the most obvious candidate from SA, which has never supplied a High Court justice.

“I have heard the complaint from all of my colleagues from South Australia.”

However, all the leading candidates came from NSW. Justin Gleeson, SC, and Robert Beech-Jones of the NSW Court of Appeal were also prominent in discussions.

Two years ago, matters of geography were decisive, when the Coalition chose Federal Court judges Simon Steward, from Victoria, and Jacqueline Gleeson, from NSW, to fill the vacancies left by Geoffrey Nettle and Virginia Bell.

A go-to judge for difficult cases

There was a feeling at the time that Jagot was unlucky; that she might have been overlooked because she was married to Peter McClellan, who presided over the child abuse royal commission set up by the Gillard Labor government.

More plausible is the fact she was appointed to the Federal Court in 2008 by Labor. Both parties have been historically reluctant to further promote someone first chosen by the other side.

Jagot started her judicial career on the NSW Land and Environment Court in 2006 and has done a mix of trial and appellate work in most areas of federal law. When she came to the court, for example, she had done little patent law work, but is now highly regarded for her expertise.

She has been a go-to judge for difficult cases, as was shown by her being allocated the Christian Porter v ABC defamation case in 2021, which was settled before trial.

Jagot has presided over the COVID-19 business interruption case, disputes over port access in Newcastle, numerous workplace matters and a slew of cases involving the main corporate regulators – the Australia Securities and Investment Commission, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

She has a solid record on appeal, but a notable reversal came in 2021 when the High Court overturned a Full Court ruling on contractors, with which she agreed, and reasserted the primacy of contracts.

‘Rare mix’

Jagot is popular with her colleagues and those who appear before her. Arthur Moses, SC, said she had “that rare mix of characteristics – first-class jurist, politeness at all times, able to efficiently get through a huge workload, and the emotional intelligence to understand the parties before the court”.

Jagot was declining all interviews on Thursday. This was hardly a surprise, given Federal Court colleague Anna Katzmann once said she guarded her privacy so tightly “that even your closest friends don’t know who you are”.

Other than that she is a highly regarded judge, who was appointed to the High Court “on merit”.