Royal Commissioner found he was not biased because he 'cannot use email'
One of the nation's top legal minds who yesterday struck down calls for his resignation on claims of bias found himself not to be biased on the grounds of his "notorious" technological ineptitude.
On a reported salary of $3,000 a day for his role as commissioner of Royal Commission into trade union corruption, Dyson Heydon found himself not biased because he does not read his emails.
In his 67-page explanation why he believed the fact that he agreed to speak at Liberal Party function did not taint him with bias, the former jurist admitted he did not know how to use emails – let alone a computer.
Electronic communications are either handled by his assistant or printed out, Mr Heydon said.
"At the outset, it should be noted that there is evidence that I have no computer and that all email correspondence is sent and received by my personal assistant," he wrote in his finding.
"Indeed it is notorious among the legal profession that I am incapable of sending or receiving emails.
"The consequence is that I read emails only after they have been printed out for me."
Unions claim Mr Heydon's gazetted appearance at the Sir Garfield Barwick Address in Sydney this month gave a perception of bias, as it is a Liberal Party function.
In his judgment delivered Monday, Mr Heydon – who was appointed to the High Court by former Liberal Prime Minster John Howard – found there was no "rational basis" for bias as he did not read the full correspondence.
"The mere fact that a person agrees to deliver a speech at a particular forum does not rationally establish that the person is sympathetic to, or endorses the views of, the organiser of that forum," Mr Heydon found in his judgment.
The former jurist found the applicants "did not show that a fair-minded lay observer might conclude the commissioner, a highly experienced lawyer and former judge, would not be able to put out of his mind any extraneous or irrelevant matters and deal with the issues impartially".
Mr Heydon, who was said to be hand picked for the commissioner role by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, also found there was no logical connection between the unions' argument regarding a bias toward the Liberal Party and the royal commission's focus into union corruption.
Morning news break – September 1
