By Gregory Boyle
It would be a mistake to take this to be yet another memoir of a judicial retiree seeking to explain the obscure beauties of the law to a dim public; indeed, the sweep is wide, and all is written in a comforting, conversational but expository voice.
Who would think today that (as explained in the opening pages) it would be possible to self-build a family home in leafy Dalkeith, today the home of multi-million-dollar mansions, but that is what Mr McKechnie senior did in post-war, rationed-building-supplies times. The home, typical of the period, had a back veranda/sleepout in which John and his older brother slept in a bunk bed (with older brother, of course, getting the upper bunk).
There are, to our minds today, incredible descriptions of road trips to and from the east on the unsealed Eyre Highway in perhaps the most unsuitable vehicle imaginable – a Rover 70 (the one with rear-hinged passenger doors). But as if that is not enough, the car was towing a trailer on which was a Windrush sailing dinghy to attend various sailing regattas in the eastern states, as that area of Australia was generally called, as to emphasise its ‘foreignness’.
All these vignettes give a wonderful feeling for the times, temporally not far removed from ours, but so different socially.
The evolution from articled clerk to silk to judge and more is brilliantly limned without a scintilla of conceit. Here, I must reveal that I was a partner in Jackson McDonald at the time John was a humble, diligent articled clerk, generally considered by all of us partners as a ‘keeper’ but – alas for the firm but empowering for him – John embarked on a different way to serve the profession and the public.
The descriptions of prominent and not-so-prominent members of the profession are respectful and never malicious or judgemental, and that particularly goes for members of the various benches before whom he appeared as counsel. His treatment of some – few judicial officers before whom he appeared – notorious in the broader profession for their rudeness and general dyspeptic attitude to counsel is a masterclass in discretion, kindness and skilful allusion, without any tabloid sensationalism.
The chapter ‘Life as a judge’ should be a compulsory read for all those seeking judicial office.
But where the work really shines is in Part Three, ‘Criminal cases that changed the law’, and Part Four, ‘A tapestry of cases’. For anyone in practice at that time in Perth, three parts alone warrant buying the book; the exhumation of the immensely complicated Rothwells saga (more or less as an aside to the purport of Part One titled, ‘Why law?’) is a masterclass in synthesising the immensely complex to terms of total, readable simplicity.
Part Four deals with the cases which in their time were all riveting and followed avidly by the general public. The so-called Perth Mint Swindle, involving the mythical nugget called ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’, is compulsive reading.
We all know John’s ‘Quirky Cases’ published in this journal over several years and here they are given a well-deserved extra airing.
Underlying all the literary and professional messages and history is a sense, set out early in Part One, that ultimately drove John to take up his role at the Corruption and Crime Commission.
There is the briefest but signal mention of the curse that world-wide corruption is, with fleeting reference to the 1 MDB scandal in Malaysia. From a deep-seated abhorrence of the factors that gave rise to this particular scandal that is too easily dismissed as ‘foreign’ or ‘not likely to happen here’ there seems to be a realisation in John that he was called to ‘do something about it’, to use the weasel words of so many politicians. But John certainly did so in spades and has, furthermore, written a most readable book.
