How and based on what criteria are Family Court Judges chosen? Does public have a right to know of the moral character, social standing, past history and mental stability and health of the judges who are going to decide the future of their children? ================= Moral character or character is an evaluation of an individual's stable moral qualities. The concept of character can imply a variety of attributes including the existence or lack of virtues such as empathy, courage, fortitude, honesty, and loyalty, or of good behaviors or habits. ================= What is public knowledge on the recently retired Chief Justice of Family Courts of Australia? Not much! Other than she is married has no children and was brought up by her mother and grand mother with father not in the picture who lived in another country. If you dig deeper you hit a wall in every turn... Documents blocked, court-injuncted, removed from internet, arsen-burnt ... Only things available are written by the Courts. ####################### Diana Bryant (From SMH article in 2004) Diana Bryant, the nation's new Family Court Chief Justice, was sipping champagne on a beach in Noosa on the Thursday night of her appointment. "We're just having a quiet Moet and Chandon, for God's sake," said her proud husband, Dr Richard Nowotny. ################### Who is Dr Nowotny? A recently retired General Practitioner in Melbourne, Australia and a Bird Watcher. Hold on .... there is a small item if you click on the links, the items are removed ... Read below ========================= International students in fake certificate scam Posted on July 9, 2011 by Sabina Bhate Australian Doctor– 06 July, 2011 Author: Sophie Cousins “International students are buying fake medical certificates, complete with real GPs’ names and practice addresses, in a bid to retain their study visas and remain in Australia. Melbourne GP Dr Richard Nowotny recently returned to work at South Melbourne Family Practice after an overseas trip to find he had become inadvertently embroiled in the scam.” ============================= Various other articles are very vague and praise her for being a quiet achiever without questioning why she is so quiet. Thru her interviews, we know she was brought up by her mother and grand mother. Her father is not in the picture. In one interview she reveals that she had connected with her father later in life. Justice Bryant says in her interview that she was brought up by her grand mother as her mother (Betty Bryant) was busy running her law firm. Justice Bryant does not engage in answering questions about her mother in her last interview with the ABC, other than reluctantly accepting her mother was jailed for Fraud and theft of $8M of her clients' money. This happened in 1975 in Melbourne. Justice Bryant would have been a practicing lawyer close to 30 years of age. Betty Bryant was the Principle of R.W. Barrie & Co. ######################### 1975-78 : THREE YEARS OF THEFT, INSOLVENCY AND FIRE In 1975, Betty Bryant, principal of RW Barrie & CO of Queen Street, Melbourne misappropriated $7m. This precipitated the second significant Solicitors Guaranteed Funds (SGF) 'crash' and began a triennium in which (in consequence) the SGF operated during a technical insolvency and required the three years 1975-78 to pay out over $10m. Finally, the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) building in Little Bourke Street was destroyed by fire on 22 June 1978 and arson was confirmed as the cause. In April 1975, the new LIV Secretary, the then Gordon Lewis, became aware of the extent of the RW Barrie & CO thefts. Six weeks after Mr Lewis started work, the LIV discovered an $8 million defalcation by Betty Bryant, principal of city firm RW Barrie & Co. It was easily Australia's biggest defalcation, and it shattered public confidence in the profession. The LIV's first press conference was held amid speculation that losses could be as high as $20M Gordon Lewis called the first LIV press conference to reassure the public. It was a difficult task. It was clear that claims, once admitted, could not all be paid immediately and would have to be staggered over several years, with huge interest bills, as income to the SGF permitted. RW Barrie & CO did not precipitate the same angst as had AL Row in 1963-64, because the interest on clients accounts was available as a backstop in 1975, admittedly over a number of years, to cushion LIV Council concern. What was different, however, was the dependency upon the SGF of the VLF, LCI, the Law Reform Commissioner and of course, legal aid. Pressure on the Government to support legal aid was immediate, including pressure from its backbenchers. Although LIV administration of the SGF and the LIV disciplinary system were 'preferred creditors' and safe from reduction because any net asset excess was calculated after these expenses were met, the LIV was acutely conscious that any inactivity in the wake of the thefts would not sit well with the other beneficiaries, let alone Government, which was paying for the shortfall, especially in legal aid. RW Barrie's clients were an extensive mixture of investors (lending on mortgage through Betty Bryant), home buyers and litigants, yet most of the thefts occurred because of the mortgage practice, which by its nature operated with individual lenders having no personal contact with Betty Bryant for some months. Mrs Bryant needed only to pay interest to older lenders with the proceeds of more recent borrowings in order to maintain momentum. RW Barrie & CO, as with many defaulting firms since then, were not essentially acting as legal practitioners to these clients, but as investment advisers, doing little more than nominating borrowers and collecting interest periodically. The LIV was certainly made aware - through a letter to its own journal - that this category of 'legal' practice was the SGF Achilles but it did not, it appears, recognise that fact. Although everyone no doubt hoped that this type of theft was unique, it was clearly a modus operandi which remained open for the future. Mortgage business was, it must be remembered, very profitable for some LIV members. It is not too strong to suggest that the prospect of any significant reduction in members' incomes consequent upon major restrictions on mortgage practice business was then unpalatable to the LIV Council. As the (self) regulator of the SGF, the Council's inaction did leave a question as to its ability to act first in the public interest. As an interim measure, the legislation was amended to provide, as of 25 November 1975, for the LIV to make progressive payments on SGF claims, and the percentage of lowest monthly balances held by solicitors and required as a deposit with the LIV was raised from 40 percent to 60 percent, effective as of 31 March 1976. Meanwhile, the review of the SGF (which everyone thought prudent) was being discussed, but, it appears, without real awareness of the core issue. ############################### THE AGE, Saturday, April 5, 1975 HOME NEWS . Her solicitors' practicing licence was cancelled by the institute on March 28. R. W. Barrie and Co. conducted an extensive practice arranging mortgage investments between clients. A large proportion of the outstanding mortgages are believed to involve small transactions by private individuals, A large number of staff from the Law Institute are assisting Mr. Carter in the investigation one of the biggest in its history. Legal sources said yesterday that any financial loss suffered by clients of the firm would be covered by the solicitors' guarantee fund, which is operated by the institute. The executive' director of the '. institute (Mr. G. D. Lewis) has this morning placed a newspaper advertisement calling on clients of the firm claiming "pecuniary loss from any defalcation'" to apply for compensation. It is likely to be several months before a true indication of the firm's financial position is known. The solicitors' guarantee fund currently holds about $40 million Since 1951, only 3.3 million has been paid out of the fund. . The Law Institute of Victoria is investigating $10 million in outstanding mortgages arranged by a firm of city solicitors. Operations of the firm, R. W. Barrie and Co., of Queen Street, have been suspended following the discovery of discrepancies in its accounts. The institute began investigating the firm on March 17 after receiving two complaints relating to dishonored cheques and mortgage security from clients. The official receiver, Mr. Scott Carter, has discovered a deficiency between the company's bank trust account balance and ''the firm's trust account ledgers. . ' Mr. Carter has investigated half of the $10 million in mortgage deals on the firm's books. It is believed there is uncertainty . about the security of $2 million of the transactions studied so far. - , . R. W. Barrie and Co., an established family practice, was conducted by Mrs. Betty Gladys Bryant who employed four other women solicitors. Mrs. Bryant is believed to be recovering from a coma. ############################ Justice Bryant’s mother, Betty Bryant, was jailed for theft of $8M which she claimed she did not know where it had gone, for 7 years…. More than $1M per year spent in jail in 1970’s dollars. No lawyer could have made that much money in 7 years in 1976… $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Justice Bryant then moves to Perth…In 1984 she became a Director of Australian Airline, around the same time her mother was released from prison with the $8M stolen from her client still unaccounted. Nothing is known about her Directorship of an Airline that later merged with Qantas. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ on 23 August 2017 Chief Justice Bryant was interviewed by Damien Carrick.... Damien Carrick: Families, always complex and perhaps becoming even more so. Chief Justice Diana Bryant, I'm wondering if I can ask you a few personal questions? Your childhood, I understand that your parents divorced when you were very young. Diana Bryant: Yes. Damien Carrick: Can I ask, who were your primary carers and what was your home life like? Diana Bryant: My home life was a really matriarchal home life. My mother worked, she is a lawyer, so she went to work every day, and my grandmother was at home and was probably my primary attachment, as I've subsequently learned in psychological terms later on. Damien Carrick: And your father left the family home at a young age. Did you have much contact with him? Diana Bryant: I didn't have much contact with my father. He lived in New Guinea for most of my life, so he didn't get to come to Australia very often. I saw him occasionally when he did. Probably, looking back on it, didn't really much enjoy going out on those outings because I didn't know him, but my mother, to her credit, made sure that I kept contact. And later on in life when I was an adult I went and stayed with him and got to know him and became really close to him and to my half-sister. So it was an interesting journey. Damien Carrick: And do you think that experience informed your approach to your work as a family lawyer and a Family Court judge? Diana Bryant: It probably did. I know that when I was a barrister and on occasions I'd talk to clients about sometimes where there was huge conflict about maybe stepping back and maintaining that contact rather than putting pressure on the child, so I've talked about that a little. On the bench I haven't. I think it's entirely different, you have to decide each case. But I think it's really important, and I've always tried to do this as a judge, to understand what your own prejudices and biases are. Damien Carrick: And what do you mean by that? Diana Bryant: I mean understanding what you might think yourself and making sure that you don't project that onto decisions that you are making. Damien Carrick: And not coming from the nuclear family ideal, do you think that gives you an insight into the kind of diversity of families and relationships that are out there? Diana Bryant: I suppose so, I haven't really thought about that as affecting me generally, but certainly for my own life it certainly gave me I think the view that women could do anything, because that's how our household operated. Damien Carrick: Your mum ran her own law firm, you were brought up by your grandma, it was a very strong matriarchal household, yes. Speaking of your mum, as I understand it you are a third generation lawyer and your mum ran her own law firm, a strong lady. But there is a complicated life story here. I understand that your mum, Betty Bryant, was jailed for seven years in 1976 for misappropriating $8.3 million from the firm that she ran. And I understand she even after that attempted to end her own life. Can you tell me, as much as you're comfortable, about that? Diana Bryant: My mother ran a mortgage lending practice. That's the way in which the money was lost, so she didn't benefit from it. Subsequently there have been other firms that have had a mortgage lending practices where things have gone… Damien Carrick: So the money just disappeared, if you like. Diana Bryant: Yes, and if it goes on long enough, which hers did, you are really robbing Peter to pay Paul all the time. Damien Carrick: She didn't pocket the money but, if you like, she was shifting it around and moving it around in an illegal way. Diana Bryant: Yes, absolutely, it's completely illegal, they are trust account offences, so when this happened I wasn't in any doubt right from the start that she would be charged and that she would go to jail. So it was a longish period before that happened, 10 months or so from the beginning to when she was finally sentenced, there was a plea and she pleaded guilty, so I knew what was going to happen. For me that was an interesting experience because I think what it taught me, which has been useful I think for me on the bench is that you should never be judgemental. I realise that I could easily accept that what she had done was the wrong thing and clearly she needed to be punished for it, but that doesn't stop you from supporting your mother as an individual. As I said, it just taught me that you need to be non-judgemental about people and why they do things. Damien Carrick: And having your mum convicted of a serious crime and going to jail, that would have been really difficult for you. Diana Bryant: It's hard looking back on it. I moved to Western Australia just after that, which I think was…not intentionally, but I moved there to get…I got married and moved with my husband, but for me that was probably a good break because it was pretty notorious in Victoria at the time, whereas no one in Western Australia paid much attention. Damien Carrick: And your mum attempted to take her own life, but she went on to recover and to lead the rest of her life well or happily? Diana Bryant: Yes, she did, and she was pretty good. When she came out she did criminology, went back to university and did criminology, and then did arts. So she made a new life for herself. %$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$ Quiet achiever ushers in a new era June 26, 2004 Don't expect Diana Bryant to have table-thumping brawls with the Government, writes Cynthia Banham. Diana Bryant, the nation's new Family Court Chief Justice, was sipping champagne on a beach in Noosa on the Thursday night of her appointment. "We're just having a quiet Moet and Chandon, for God's sake," said her proud husband, Dr Richard Nowotny. He, Bryant and two of their friends were celebrating a promotion which had just seen the 56-year-old former Melbourne QC become only the second woman in Australia's history to head a federal court. Elizabeth Evatt, the Family Court's inaugural chief justice, was the first, in 1976. While Nowotny - much to his wife's jocular "shock and horror" - was more than happy to speak glowingly of the "riches" of her character, Bryant declined all interviews. This was hardly surprising, as she kept a low profile in her previous role as the country's first chief of the Federal Magistrate's Court. The federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, saw it as a definite plus. In listing the qualities that made Bryant his first choice for the Family Court, he said she was able to "provide effective leadership that wasn't a high-profile leadership". What was more unexpected was to find the hard-working, very competent and successful administrator, who attracted wide acclaim for the way she built up the Magistrate's Court from scratch, was a woman with very colourful interests and life experiences. Her husband, a medical doctor, said he was not going to comment on her professional abilities because he was not a lawyer. "But I can tell you as a person she is an extremely well-rounded person, she's got riches in all sorts of other areas," Nowotny said. He began to explain how the couple, who have no children, first met on the ski slopes, and that Bryant "used to wear these wonderful trench coats", before objections from his wife stopped him from elaborating. Nowotny takes credit for ensuring that his wife maintains a life outside her work. And so, while her legal colleagues heaped praise on Bryant for her unrelenting work ethic, with one Melbourne silk, Martin Bartfeld, saying she had "not yet worked out that there are only 24 hours in the day and that some of those have to be devoted to sleep", her husband painted a slightly different picture. "I think I'm the cause of her having both sleep and a bit of a rest of a life," he said. "I have a strong suspicion that if she didn't have a husband to organise holidays she would have been a typical professional, who would have gone on conferences and just taken a bit of a holiday associated with conferences. But she's a good holidayer." Nor is Bryant a stranger to the trials and tribulations of family life. Members of the Victorian legal profession say Bryant moved to Perth from Melbourne, where she studied law, around the time her mother, a prominent solicitor, was jailed for embezzling trust account money. In Perth, Bryant developed a successful family law practice, and rose to become partner at Phillips Fox. A family law solicitor, William Carr, who knew Bryant as a lawyer in Western Australia and went on to brief her in Melbourne when she joined the Victorian Bar, describes her as an "absolutely outstanding lawyer", who had an "incredible rapport with the clients", was very objective and "sort of can do everything". Michael Foster, chairman of the Law Council of Australia's family law section, said Bryant was "not driven by ego". That Bryant keeps her head down and her political opinions largely to herself is in stark contrast to her immediate predecessor, the outspoken Alastair Nicholson. To this extent it made her appointment a "predictable one", says Sydney University's Professor Patrick Parkinson. Nicholson's public pronouncements on social issues embroiled him in a long-running feud with the Howard Government. It was a duel that got so bad that five years ago the then Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, set up the Federal Magistrate's Court in a bid to strip Nicholson of his power and his court of its resources. Unlike Nicholson, Bryant is not, colleagues say, a "table thumper" - though that doesn't mean she's never voiced opinions contrary to the Government's. Before her appointment to the Federal Magistrate's Court, Bryant publicly questioned the need for such a body. She also joined Nicholson in 2002 in rebuking the Howard Government for not standing up for High Court Justice Michael Kirby in the face of false accusations made in Parliament against him by Liberal senator Bill Heffernan. Family law practitioners expressed relief this week that in appointing Bryant the Government had made a non-political, albeit a safe, appointment. Nevertheless it's interesting that when the Herald asked the Attorney-General's office for significant decisions Bryant had made as Chief Magistrate, it was directed to five family law cases involving custody disputes where she had made orders sympathetic to fathers. One of the biggest complaints about the Family Court has been its perceived bias against men. So relentless has been the lobbying of the Government by separated fathers groups, at Prime Minister John Howard's instigation a parliamentary inquiry recently looked into (but rejected) the possibility of introducing a legal presumption of 50-50 shared custody after divorce. Perhaps the Government would like to assure critics of the court that a new era of family law justice has arrived. $%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$%$ Wikipedia search : Diana Bryant AO QC (born 13 October 1947) is an Australian jurist. She was appointed Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia on 5 July 2004. Bryant was born in Perth, Western Australia and attended Firbank Girls' Grammar School in Melbourne.[2] Bryant holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from Melbourne University, and a Master of Laws degree from Monash University. She was admitted as a legal practitioner in Victoria in 1970. From 1977 to 1990, Chief Justice Bryant was a partner with the firm of Phillips Fox in Perth where she practised as a solicitor and counsel specialising in family law. She was also a Director of Australian Airlines from 1984 to 1989. From May 2000 she was the inaugural Chief Federal Magistrate of Australia, the head of the Federal Magistrates' Court, thus being the first woman appointed to the position. Prior to her appointment, Chief Justice Bryant had practised at the Victorian Bar from 1990 where she specialised in family law and de facto property disputes, particularly at the appellate level. She was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1997 and was a founding member of Chancery Chambers, Melbourne. Chief Justice of the Family Court Diana Bryant says the court process is not working. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-05/family-court-chief-justice-diana-bryant/7551078 In February 2009 Chief Justice Bryant was appointed Patron of Australian Women Lawyers, after founding Patron Mary Gaudron QC, in recognition of her support for women lawyers and efforts to promote equality of opportunity for women in the community. Bryant retired as Chief Justice on 12 October 2017 reaching the constitutional retirement age of 70.[6] In 2012 Bryant was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for "distinguished service to the judiciary and to the law, particularly to family law policy reform and practice, through the establishment of the Federal Magistrates Court, and to the advancement of women in the legal profession". ?????????????????????????? Above is the only publicly available documents on Justice Bryant, the Chief Justice of Australia's Family Courts for close to 14 years. ..... Chief Justice Diana Bryant became a member of AFCC (The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts) and was instrumental in setting up the Australian Chapter of a notorious, questionable and highly suspicious American organisation accused of money laundering for its members and obtaining false Tax Exemption in the US. (Please see other updates on AFCC) . Judge Bryant's membership of AFCC is NOT public knowledge. There is next to no information on other Family Court Judges of Australia other than they were all solicitors then barristers and then appointed to become the most powerful judges in the country with total impunity, unlimited discretion, unchecked power and absolutely no judicial oversight. The Public has the right to know about the character, the moral character, integrity, mental illness, social standing and accomplishments, personal history and personalities of Judges who will be deciding the faith of their children and their future. #Expose #Investigate #Corruption #Cronyism #Collusion #Fraud #CrimesAgainstChildren #LegalAbuse in #FamilyCourt Sign share support this petition.