A distinguished Monarchist leaves the Australian High Court
In the daily newspaper The Australian, which is of course part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, Michael Pelly has called it “the most incongruous thing about [Australian High Court Judge Michael] Kirby […] that he is a monarchist. Yet it fits neatly with his respect for pillars of society such as family, church and parliament. He has also emphasised the importance of obligations in his judgments, especially in contract cases.”

Why should it be incongruous that a highly respected lawyer is loyal to the Oath of Allegiance he has sworn to The Queen of Australia?

Michael Kirby was lucky he was appointed at all to the highest court in Australia. Again Michael Pelly: “The attorney-general at the time of Kirby's appointment to the High Court in 1996, Michael Lavarch, says there was no mention of Kirby's sexuality in government circles. ‘I did, however, have a problem with his support for the monarchy.’"

On 10th December, Justice Michael Kirby announced that he will quit the High Court on 2nd February 2009, a month before he was due to retire at 70. Michael Kirby was appointed to the High Court by the Keating Government and was known for his dissenting decisions, especially on human rights cases, making him the highest dissenting judge in the court's history.

As recently as in April 2008 Justice Michael Kirby referred to the proven advantages of constitutional monarchy as the Sydney Morning Herald reported: ”But to Kirby the monarchy is a radical institution. ‘The freest countries are constitutional monarchies’.”

Michael Pelly said: “If [Justice] Ian Callinan could be described as a radical conservative, then Kirby is the conservative radical.“

That sounds familiar to the Radical Royalist. Is there a Royaist Radical somewhere?