Court of Appeal sends Freund matter back to NSW judicial watchdog

The Court of Appeal quashed a Judicial Commission of NSW decision concerning Deputy Chief Judge Sharon Freund and sent the matter back to the judicial watchdog. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the commission must reconsider whether to refer the matter to a conduct division. The court directed the commission to deal with it according to law. The case follows a complaint Freund made to the commission against Chief Judge Michael Allen. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, court documents filed by Freund’s lawyers said she alleged Allen bullied her over an 18-month period. The commission dismissed her complaint in June. Allen is a member of the Judicial Commission, but he had been excluded from participating in the examination of matters concerning Freund. The court examined messages Allen sent about Freund to a commission member. In one message, dated July 29, Allen wrote: “Not sure she will ever go away.”

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Allen also wrote to NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley on June 25, raising the findings about Freund. The article does not describe a response from Daley. Freund’s lawyers told the court that the commission’s findings concerned her handling of a criminal matter in 2024. The defendant in that matter was the adult child of another magistrate, whom the Chief Judge had questioned, according to the lawyers’ submissions as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald. The lawyers also argued that the commission’s decision described the seriousness of the matter by comparing it with the definition of “corrupt conduct” in the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act 1988 (NSW). They said that comparison was not called for by the dismissal of Freund’s bullying complaint. The account presents this as the lawyers’ submission, rather than a separate finding by the Court of Appeal. The appeal court’s order returns the matter to the commission, which now has to reconsider whether referral to a conduct division is warranted. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the court made the order on Friday; the account does not give a calendar date for that Friday. The commission’s reconsideration is the next procedural step identified in the account.