In a letter to the editor, founding Australian Human Rights Commissioner Brian Burdekin writes:

"It is extraordinary that any lawyer - let alone retired High Court judges or colourful QCs - can seriously contend that the common law and democratically elected parliaments are adequate to protect human rights."

"The much vaunted common law developed functional rules for protecting property, commerce and contract - but from the perspective of the most vulnerable, disadvantaged and marginalised in our community - including the homeless, the mentally ill, indigenous peoples and those with multiple disabilities - the common law was, and still is, an abject failure."

No wonder! Common law is comprised of a men's jurisdiction.

Absent women's legislatures and a jurisdiction at law, women are the largest component of the nation's disadvantaged.

Journalist Yuko Narushima reports Law Society of NSW, Hugh Macken's view of recent appointment to the High Court, Justice Bell's "empathy for the underprivileged and understanding of how legislation affected ordinary people that defined her professional life".

Should men ever treat women as equals, a women's jurisdiction has a champion of compassion in the delivery of justice, free from male supervision.

18 December, 2008