Valedictory Ceremony for His Honour Judge Forno QC

Monday of this week marked the 20th anniversary of your Honour’s appointment as a judge. 20 years before the mast of the District Court.  Such are the differences in seniority, that your Honour left the bar barely two years before I joined it and I suspect that the vast majority of barristers here this morning have only ever known your Honour as a Judge. Your Honour’s retirement will bring to an end a judicial career which spanned almost a generation.

The District Courts are a very different institution to that your Honour joined on the 18th of February 1988.  If one excludes the Magistrates Court where trials are usually of a far simpler kind, this court is far and away the busiest trial court in the state and as a consequence of the expansion of both its civil and criminal jurisdiction and the increased complexity of trials in both these spheres the life of a District Court Judge has become increasingly demanding and the tasks required of him or her increasingly important to the life of the state. But your Honour has moved with the times and adapted.

Your Honour was a popular and enthusiastic member of the bar who won many friends throughout your career as a prosecutor and a member of the private bar, both in Brisbane and perhaps especially on circuit throughout the state.  During this period you contributed to the life of the Bar Association by serving as a member of its important, and often personally demanding complaints sub-committee.  On behalf of the Association I thank you for this.

As a Judge your Honour’s reputation was that of a man who was naturally courteous but, stern and even forthright when provoked as can happen in the heat of a process as strenuous as a criminal trial.

But it is not only a person’s professional experience which shapes how they perform as a Judge.  Beyond your Honour’s life as a barrister and a Judge the features which seem to have distinguished you have been loyalty and dedication to family and bagpipes. An example of the first of these characteristics is your former relationship with the late Judge Ralph Cormack.  This Judge who sat in Townsville was one of nature’s gentlemen who gave your Honour, whose family did not have a background in the law, the great opportunity of working as his Honour’s associate from an early age.  Throughout this period your Honour forged a close relationship with the Judge, to whom you remain devoted for the rest of his life. I expect it was a proud day when his Honour was present at your Honour’s swearing in ceremony 20 years ago.

Your Honour is a devoted family man I am told and almost inseparable from your wife of many years. You have three children, Trent, who is a successful solicitor and a member of the firm Minter Ellison. Lisa, an accomplished teacher who has maintained the legal connection of the family by marrying Glen Cranny, a member of Gilshenan & Luton and Trent who is a fine, but somewhat battle-scarred and hardened teacher of the French language. I say this because I know that he endured attempts to impart this beautiful tongue to my two eldest sons and that this was not always plain sailing for him. Your Honour’s children have already provided five glorious grandchildren upon whom you dote with another two in the offing.

This brings me to the pipes. It seems my lot in life to give speeches at ceremonies honouring judicial officers with a strong connection to Scotland and the letter “f”. Your Honour’s love of and mastery of the pipes is known up and down the state. Justice Spender has told me that you have won such a reputation in this field that you are and have for some time now been the custodian of the Spender family pipes upon which you lavish great care.

With these things to sustain you, I suspect your departure from the court simply herald another busy period in your life. The bar wishes your Honour and Mrs Forno a long, happy and fruitful retirement.

May it please the court.

Michael Stewart SC

President