The Hon Chief Justice Susan Kiefel AC LLM (Cantab) Show The Honourable Susan Mary Kiefel was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia on 30 January 2017, having served as a Justice of the High Court since 3 September 2007. Her Honour was born in Cairns, Queensland, Australia in 1954. She was educated in Queensland and at the University of Cambridge, where she received a Master of Law. Having been admitted to the Queensland Bar in 1975, in 1987 her Honour became the first woman in Queensland to be appointed Queen’s Counsel. She became a Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland in 1993, and a Justice of the Federal Court in 1994. For four years (2003 to 2007) her Honour served as a part-time Commissioner of the Australian Law Reform Commission. She also held a commission as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Norfolk Island from 2004. Her Honour was awarded the Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2011. In 2008, her Honour was made an Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge and a Doctor of the University of Griffith University. She was also made a Doctor of Laws honoris causa by the University of Queensland in 2009, and awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Adelaide in 2018. Among other things, her Honour is a titular member of the International Academy of Comparative Law; an Honorary Bencher of the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn; and an Honorary Professor of the Faculty of Law at The University of Hong Kong. Selected speeches by Chief Justice Kiefel AC
Each Court is independent of the Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney-General and Queensland Government.
Chief Justice Quinlan was appointed to the Supreme Court of Western Australia on 13 August 2018. He was appointed as a judge of the Court, a judge of the Court of Appeal and as the Chief Justice of Western Australia. He graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce in 1992 and a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) in 1995 from the University of Western Australia. Chief Justice Quinlan was Professional Assistant to K H Parker AO QC, Solicitor General for Western Australia, from 1993 to 1994, and associate to the Hon Justice Parker, Supreme Court of Western Australia in 1995. From 1996 to 2001, he was a Legal Officer (and ultimately Assistant Crown Counsel) at the WA Crown Solicitor’s Office before joining the Independent Bar in 2001. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 2010. The Chief Justice was appointed Solicitor General for Western Australia on 1 July 2016 and served in this role until his appointment to the Bench. He served as President, WA Bar Association from 2012 to 2015, Board of Governors at the University of Notre Dame from 2008 and Director of the Law Council of Australia from 2012 to 2014. Chambers may be contacted as follows: Executive Assistant, Chief Justice's Chambers - Telephone: (08) 9421 5337 Associate - Telephone: (08) 9421 5479 John Roberts since September 29, 2005Supreme Court of the United StatesStyleMr. Chief Justice (informal) Your Honor (within court) The Honorable (formal)StatusChief justiceMember ofFederal judiciary Judicial Conference Administrative Office of the CourtsSeatSupreme Court Building, Washington, D.C.AppointerThe President with Senate advice and consentTerm lengthLife tenureConstituting instrumentConstitution of the United StatesFormationMarch 4, 1789 (1789-03-04)First holderJohn JaySalary$286,700 USDWebsiteSupremeCourt.gov
The chief justice of the United States is the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States and the highest-ranking officer of the U.S. federal judiciary. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants plenary power to the president of the United States to nominate, and with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, appoint "Judges of the supreme Court", who serve until they resign, retire, are impeached and convicted, or die. The existence of a chief justice is explicit in Article One, Section 3, Clause 6 which states that the chief justice shall preside on the impeachment trial of the president. The chief justice has significant influence in the selection of cases for review, presides when oral arguments are held, and leads the discussion of cases among the justices. Additionally, when the court renders an opinion, the chief justice, if in the majority, chooses who writes the court's opinion; however, when deciding a case, the chief justice's vote counts no more than that of any other justice. Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 designates the chief justice to preside during presidential impeachment trials in the Senate; this has occurred three times. While nowhere mandated, the presidential oath of office is by tradition typically administered by the chief justice. The chief justice serves as a spokesperson for the federal government's judicial branch and acts as a chief administrative officer for the federal courts. The chief justice presides over the Judicial Conference and, in that capacity, appoints the director and deputy director of the Administrative Office. The chief justice is an ex officio member of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution and, by custom, is elected chancellor of the board. Since the Supreme Court was established in 1789, 17 people have served as chief justice, beginning with John Jay (1789–1795). The current chief justice is John Roberts (since 2005). Five of the 17 chief justices—John Rutledge, Edward Douglass White, Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan Fiske Stone, and William Rehnquist—served as associate justice prior to becoming chief justice. Origin, title and appointmentThe United States Constitution does not explicitly establish an office of chief justice but presupposes its existence with a single reference in Article I, Section 3, Clause 6: "When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside." Nothing more is said in the Constitution regarding the office. Article III, Section 1, which authorizes the establishment of the Supreme Court, refers to all members of the court simply as "judges". The Judiciary Act of 1789 created the distinctive titles of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1866, Salmon P. Chase assumed the title of Chief Justice of the United States, and Congress began using the new title in subsequent legislation.[1] The first person whose Supreme Court commission contained the modified title was Melville Fuller in 1888.[2] The associate justice title was not altered in 1866 and remains as originally created. The chief justice, like all federal judges, is nominated by the president and confirmed to office by the U.S. Senate. Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution specifies that they "shall hold their Offices during good Behavior." This language means that the appointments are effectively for life and that once in office, a justice's tenure ends only when the justice dies, retires, resigns, or is removed from office through the impeachment process. Since 1789, 15 presidents have made a total of 22 official nominations to the position.[3] The salary of the chief justice is set by Congress; as of 2022, the annual salary is $286,700, which is slightly higher than that of associate justices, which is $274,300.[4] The practice of appointing an individual to serve as chief justice is grounded in tradition; while the Constitution mandates that there be a chief justice, it is silent on the subject of how one is chosen and by whom. There is no specific constitutional prohibition against using another method to select the chief justice from among those justices properly appointed and confirmed to the Supreme Court. Three incumbent associate justices have been nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate as chief justice: Edward Douglass White in 1910, Harlan Fiske Stone in 1941, and William Rehnquist in 1986. A fourth, Abe Fortas, was nominated to the position in 1968 but was not confirmed. As an associate justice does not have to resign their seat on the court in order to be nominated as chief justice, Fortas remained an associate justice. Similarly, when Associate Justice William Cushing was nominated and confirmed as chief justice in January 1796 but declined the office, he too remained on the court. Two former associate justices subsequently returned to service on the court as chief justice. John Rutledge was the first. President Washington gave him a recess appointment in 1795. However, his subsequent nomination to the office was not confirmed by the Senate, and he left office and the court. In 1930, former Associate Justice Charles Evans Hughes was confirmed as chief justice. Additionally, in December 1800, former Chief Justice John Jay was nominated and confirmed to the position a second time but ultimately declined it, opening the way for the appointment of John Marshall.[3] Powers and dutiesAlong with their general responsibilities as a member of the Supreme Court, the chief justice has several unique duties to fulfill. Impeachment trialsArticle I, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that the chief justice shall preside over the Senate trial of an impeached president of the United States. Three chief justices have presided over presidential impeachment trials: Salmon P. Chase (1868 trial of Andrew Johnson), William Rehnquist (1999 trial of Bill Clinton), and John Roberts (2020 trial of Donald Trump; Roberts declined to preside over Trump's second trial in 2021, which took place after the end of Trump's presidency. Senate president pro-tempore Patrick Leahy presided).[5] All three presidents were acquitted in the Senate. Although the Constitution is silent on the matter, the chief justice would, under Senate rules adopted in 1999 prior to the Clinton trial, preside over the trial of an impeached vice president.[6][7] This rule was established to preclude the possibility of a vice president presiding over their own trial. SeniorityMany of the court's procedures and inner workings are governed by the rules of protocol based on the seniority of the justices. The chief justice always ranks first in the order of precedence—regardless of the length of the officeholder's service (even if shorter than that of one or more associate justices). This elevated status has enabled successive chief justices to define and refine both the court's culture and its judicial priorities. The chief justice sets the agenda for the weekly meetings where the justices review the petitions for certiorari, to decide whether to hear or deny each case. The Supreme Court agrees to hear less than one percent of the cases petitioned to it. While associate justices may append items to the weekly agenda, in practice this initial agenda-setting power of the chief justice has significant influence over the direction of the court. Nonetheless, a chief justice's influence may be limited by circumstances and the associate justices' understanding of legal principles; it is definitely limited by the fact that they have only a single vote of nine on the decision whether to grant or deny certiorari.[8][9] Despite the chief justice's elevated stature, their vote carries the same legal weight as the vote of each associate justice. Additionally, they have no legal authority to overrule the verdicts or interpretations of the other eight judges or tamper with them.[8] The task of assigning who shall write the opinion for the majority falls to the most senior justice in the majority. Thus, when the chief justice is in the majority, they always assign the opinion.[10] Early in his tenure, Chief Justice John Marshall insisted upon holdings which the justices could unanimously back as a means to establish and build the court's national prestige. In doing so, Marshall would often write the opinions himself and actively discouraged dissenting opinions. Associate Justice William Johnson eventually persuaded Marshall and the rest of the court to adopt its present practice: one justice writes an opinion for the majority, and the rest are free to write their own separate opinions or not, whether concurring or dissenting.[11] The chief justice's formal prerogative—when in the majority—to assign which justice will write the court's opinion is perhaps their most influential power,[9] as this enables them to influence the historical record.[8] They may assign this task to the individual justice best able to hold together a fragile coalition, to an ideologically amenable colleague, or to themselves. Opinion authors can have a large influence on the content of an opinion; two justices in the same majority, given the opportunity, might write very different majority opinions.[9] A chief justice who knows the associate justices well can therefore do much—by the simple act of selecting the justice who writes the opinion of the court—to affect the general character or tone of an opinion, which in turn can affect the interpretation of that opinion in cases before lower courts in the years to come. The chief justice chairs the conferences where cases are discussed and tentatively voted on by the justices. They normally speak first and so have influence in framing the discussion. Although the chief justice votes first—the court votes in order of seniority—they may strategically pass in order to ensure membership in the majority if desired.[9] It is reported that:
Presidential oathThe chief justice has traditionally administered the presidential oath of office to new U.S. presidents. This is merely custom, and is not a constitutional responsibility of the chief justice. The Constitution does not require that the presidential oath be administered by anyone in particular, simply that it be taken by the president. Law empowers any federal or state judge, as well as notaries public, to administer oaths and affirmations. The chief justice ordinarily administers the oath of office to newly appointed and confirmed associate justices, whereas the seniormost associate justice will normally swear in a new chief justice. If the chief justice is ill or incapacitated, the oath is usually administered by the seniormost member of the Supreme Court. Eight times, someone other than the chief justice of the United States administered the oath of office to the president.[13]
Other dutiesSince the tenure of William Howard Taft, the office of chief justice has moved beyond just first among equals.[17] The chief justice also:
Unlike Senators and Representatives, who are constitutionally prohibited from holding any other "office of trust or profit" of the United States or of any state while holding their congressional seats, the chief justice and the other members of the federal judiciary are not barred from serving in other positions. John Jay served as a diplomat to negotiate the Jay Treaty, Robert H. Jackson was appointed by President Truman to be the U.S. prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials of leading Nazis, and Earl Warren chaired the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Disability or vacancyUnder 28 U.S.C. § 3, when the chief justice is unable to discharge their functions, or when that office is vacant, the chief justice's duties are carried out by the most senior associate justice until the disability or vacancy ends.[20] Currently, Clarence Thomas is the most senior associate justice. List of chief justicesSince the Supreme Court was established in 1789, the following 17 men have served as chief justice:[21][22]
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