InBrief

The New South Wales Bar Association co-sponsored a University of Western Sydney team, which represented Australia at the Commonwealth Moot Competition, held recently in Hong Kong. This report was written by their coach, John Juriansz, who is a lecturer in law and also president of the UWS Law Alumni Association.

A team of three law students, Jonathan Adamopoulos, Matthew Carr and Tim McGrath, finished third at the recent Commonwealth Moot Competition after the narrowest of semi-final losses to the University of Hong Kong which finished second overall behind the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

The students, having won the 2008 Australian Law Students’ Association Mooting Competition, brilliantly represented Australia and the University of Western Sydney at the 2009 Commonwealth Law Moot Competition held at the 16th Commonwealth Law Conference in Hong Kong in April 2009. This moot featured teams from across the Commonwealth – countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa as well as Hong Kong and Singapore. Each competing team earned the right to represent their region having won their respective domestic moot competitions. This competition featured the best of the best of the Commonwealth.

The mooting problem featured numerous complex and novel legal puzzles involving the law of bribery and corruption, equity, misfeasance in public office, derivative actions and more. Greatly enhancing the value of this challenging competition was the opportunity to argue before a collection of the Commonwealths’ most prominent and luminary jurists. To name but a few, our students were privileged to moot before – and withstand the most ardent of cross-examinations from – benches consisting of the following: the Rt Hon Sir Anthony Clarke, master of the rolls and head of civil justice, Court of Appeal (United Kingdom); the Rt Hon The Lord Judge, lord chief justice of England and Wales; the Hon Chief Justice Christopher Gardner QC, chief justice of the Falkland Islands & British Indian Ocean Territory; The Hon Chief Justice Ivor Archie, Chief Justice of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago; and the Rt Hon Lord Justice Robert Carnwath CVO, senior president of tribunals / lord justice of appeal, Royal Court of Justice (United Kingdom).

As their coach, I would like to say how proud I am of the skilful intelligence, professionalism, courtesy, humour and work ethic of these three young men. Their considerable accomplishments to date are but few compared to what they will achieve in their professional careers to come. It would be remiss of me not to also expressly thank the generous donations of time by Geoff Warburton, Dr Michelle Sanson, Alumnus Joshua Saunders and Professor Razeen Sappideen who each assisted with judging practice moots or otherwise assisting with the development of these students. I would also like to thank Nikki Bromberger and Karen Fairey who speedily responded to my emergency email from Hong Kong to provide us with a difficult to find English precedent. This was truly a team effort!�

28 April 2009