Australia’s longest serving prime minister, Sir Robert Menzies, a barrister, thought the due processes of law were infallible — perfect after being tried and tested over hundred of years, recalled long-time Liberal Party minister and Democrats founder Don Chipp.
I have not spoken with Menzies for some years now, and have a feeling we are no longer close.
We had a mild altercation at a Carlton Football Club luncheon about five years ago. I had been, and still am, actively campaigning for a re-trial for Leith Ratten, convicted of murdering his wife in 1970.
The night before the football match, I had appeared on television pleading Ratten’s case. As I walked into the Club Room, Menzies was talking with Sir Henry Winneke, who had been the Judge at Ratten’s trial.
Winneke said in a conversational fashion:
‘Oh Don, I see you are still on the Ratten case.’
Menzies then scowled and started speaking again, pointedly ignoring me. With a voice heavy with contempt, he said in effect that the due processes of law were infallible — so perfect, so tested and tried over hundreds of years, that anyone who challenged them was not worthy of his friendship.
I was hurt by the remark, and retorted rather angrily. I forget what I said exactly, but I left him in no doubt that I thought anyone who had such a blind faith in perfect justice and who could not understand the agony of a person wrongly imprisoned was not worthy of my friendship either.
This excerpt, which has been slightly edited for style, comes from ‘The Third Man’, by Don Chipp and John Larkin, published in 1978 by Rigby (ISBN 0 7270 0827 7). It is now generally accepted that Leith Ratten, who died in January 2012 after a successful career as a surveyor following his release from prison in 1983, was completely innocent of the murder of his heavily pregnant wife.
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