A fun­da­men­tal re­quire­ment for the or­der­ly func­tion­ing of any so­ci­ety is the trust and con­fi­dence in its in­sti­tu­tions. Lead­ers will serve their time and move on, but the in­sti­tu­tions that they lead will con­tin­ue. For the in­sti­tu­tions to sur­vive, they must be built on sol­id le­gal foun­da­tions and must re­tain the pub­lic’s ac­cep­tance and trust if they are to re­main the pil­lars on which so­cial or­gan­i­sa­tion is based.

Pub­lic con­fi­dence and trust in the in­tegri­ty of any sys­tem, par­tic­u­lar­ly the ju­di­cial sys­tem, is crit­i­cal. The ef­fec­tive func­tion­ing of the le­gal sys­tem is de­pen­dent on the pub­lic’s will­ing­ness to ac­cept the judg­ment and rul­ings of the court. In ad­di­tion, the pub­lic is con­cerned not on­ly with the prop­er func­tion­ing of the court but al­so with how the le­gal sys­tem is per­ceived.

The process of ap­point­ing a new pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court has come un­der pub­lic scruti­ny, pri­mar­i­ly through the pub­lic doubts and reser­va­tions of labour lead­ers. This is not to say that the new ap­pointee Heather Seale, is un­wor­thy of the ap­point­ment. In­deed, it is un­for­tu­nate for Ms Seale that her record could and would be over­looked in the cir­cum­stances of the non-re­new­al of the con­tract of the pre­vi­ous in­cum­bent.

One would ex­pect the tran­si­tion process to demon­strate some con­ti­nu­ity, for the good of the in­sti­tu­tion. Whilst the pre­vi­ous in­cum­bent had in­deed served 12 years in the po­si­tion, the fail­ure of the Pres­i­dent, the Chief Jus­tice, or the out­go­ing pres­i­dent of the court, to give some cred­i­ble ex­pla­na­tion or pro­vide con­text for the change has led to spec­u­la­tion that some­thing was amiss. In ad­di­tion to the si­lence, the ab­sence of the out­go­ing court pres­i­dent at the for­mal han­dover sug­gests that all was not well.

Sad­ly, this is not the first ap­point­ment of a key of­fi­cer of the In­dus­tri­al Court that has come un­der pub­lic scruti­ny. The ap­point­ment of the Reg­is­trar in 2021 by the Ju­di­cial Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion al­so raised ques­tions as to whether the ap­point­ment was made through an in­de­pen­dent arms-length process.

Words and ac­tions mat­ter. In­sti­tu­tions are led by peo­ple. The ap­point­ment of Ms Kan­ga­loo to the pres­i­den­cy was sur­round­ed by ques­tions as to her in­de­pen­dence in the per­for­mance of that role giv­en her close po­lit­i­cal con­nec­tions. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the re­spons­es to this lat­est ex­er­cise of her pres­i­den­tial pow­er have brought those same queries to the fore once again. It would be naïve to think that it would be oth­er­wise. This is im­por­tant as of­fice­hold­ers are of­ten viewed as the al­ter ego of the func­tion or in­sti­tu­tion they rep­re­sent. There­fore, their words, ac­tions, or omis­sions play a piv­otal role in shap­ing and in­flu­enc­ing the de­gree of cred­i­bil­i­ty and con­fi­dence in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

With­in re­cent times many pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions such as the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, and the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion have been sub­ject to at­tack or ad­verse com­ments by key po­lit­i­cal of­fice­hold­ers re­gard­ing their op­er­a­tions and func­tion­al­i­ty. All are key to the ad­min­is­tra­tive ma­chin­ery that fa­cil­i­tates the na­tion­al frame­work.

These are dif­fi­cult times. How of­fice­hold­ers re­spond to the ac­ti­va­tion of Prop­er­ty Tax on on­ly one sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion, high­er elec­tric­i­ty rates and cost of liv­ing in­creas­es all of which will im­pact the pub­lic peace and good or­der. Re­tain­ing the trust and con­fi­dence of cit­i­zens in its in­sti­tu­tions can­not be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed. Ad­e­quate ex­pla­na­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion are key to re­tain­ing their trust.