Doc Evatt: “Justice is the Thing”

The Brilliant Boy: Doc Evatt and the Great Australian Dissent by Gideon Haigh

Abstract

The Brilliant Boy, by Gideon Haigh, traces the life of HV Evatt, pivoting it around the case of Chester v Waverley Municipal Council, in which Evatt J, on the High Court, gave an extraordinary dissent that ultimately led to legislative change to the law of negligent psychiatric harm. The case is an interesting example of the range of judgments that might be given under the ‘strict and complete legalism’ approach espoused by Dixon J. Haigh’s book offers a view of Evatt’s life that illuminates his judgments and political roles, including appointments as a judge on the High Court, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of NSW, State and Federal Member of Parliament, Leader of the Opposition, President of the United Nations General Assembly and Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs as well as major scholarly works. His relationships with his wife and family were close and loving throughout his life and Evatt had a keen eye for the vulnerable. In Chester his great achievement was to empathise deeply with the distraught and show this by his use of poetry, but without the loss of the rigour the case demanded. He said ‘Justice is the thing’ and we see evidence of this throughout his life and work.