Robert Marsden Hope
Encyclopedia
Robert Marsden Hope, AC
, CMG
(24 July 1919 – 12 October 1999) was a Justice
of the New South Wales Supreme Court and Royal Commissioner.
before being raised to the New South Wales
Bar on 26 October 1945.
Appointed a Queen's Counsel
in 1960, he was raised to the position of Justice
of the New South Wales Supreme Court in 1969. Hope was finally made a Justice
of Appeal of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the New South Wales
judiciary system in 1972, a position he held until his retirement in 1989.
He led two Royal Commission
s and one review of Australia's intelligence and security agencies and operations.
Justice Hope was awarded the honour of Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George
(CMG) in 1977. In 1989 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia
(AC), Australia's highest civilian honour.
appointed Justice Hope to head the Royal Commission into Intelligence and Security (RCIS). Completed in 1977, Hope reconfirmed the need for a national security intelligence agency and made a range of recommendations for improvement across the board of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
(ASIO)'s scope. Of note is the recommendation that areas of ASIO interest expand from traditional Cold War
counter-espionage to include sabotage, terrorism and what Hope called "active measures" by foreign agents operating against Australia and her interests. While the overhaul of the organisation did expand its powers, it also made ASIO accountable to the government and thus the Australian people. One side-effect of the RCIS saw ASIO advertise in major Australian newspapers for intelligence officers as well as employing women for the first time.
Justice Hope was again commissioned only a year later in 1978 to conduct the Protective Security Review (PSR) into protective security arrangements for the Commonwealth
as well as co-operation between national and state cooperation on protective security following the bombing of the Hilton Hotel in Sydney during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting (CHOGRM).
While the review nominally targeted "protective security", it was the threat of international terrorism in Australia that was at the heart of Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser
's decision to use Hope's experience in the area of Australia's intelligence services. When completed in 1979, the review essentially ended up probing, "in a broad sense, terrorism possibilities in Australia, and ways, and means of State, Territory and Commonwealth co-operation in dealing with the threat of terror". Again as a direct result of his recommendations, government policy on intelligence and security changed. Hope designated ASIO as the agency responsible for producing national threat assessments in the field of terrorism and politically motivated violence and at the end of 1979, a new ASIO Act came into being which implemented many of Hope's recommendations from the RCIS and the PSR. At the same time, the Security Appeals Tribunal, another of Hope's RCIS recommendations, was bought into being.
1983 saw the expulsion of Valery Ivanov
, the First Secretary for the Soviet Embassy, for espionage
activities. The publicity surrounding the affair saw the Hawke
Government commission Hope again to look into intelligence issues. Hope completed the Royal Commission into Australia's Security and Intelligence Agencies (RCASIA) in 1984 and made a range of logical and basic recommendations (in terms of the evolution of policies of the time) that again altered the parameters that Australia's intelligence agencies operated under and bought them into the political and cultural paradigms of the 1980s. One of Justice Hope's RCASIA recommendations was that the ASIO Act expressly provide that it is not the purpose of the Act that the right of lawful advocacy, protest or dissent should be affected or that exercising those rights should, by themselves, constitute activity prejudicial to security. This recommendation was important from a cultural aspect in the sense that it effectively removed security agencies from suppression of civil protest and dissent in Australia. He also recommended the creation of the office of Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to oversee and hold accountable the various agencies. As if to highlight the need for such a position, only the same year RCASIA was commissioned, the Security Appeals Tribunal ruled in a case against ASIO where they had given an unfavourable security assessment on a member of the Australian Communist Party, that membership of the Communist Party of Australia did not warrant a recommendation against the grant of access to classified national security material (such as required by their job - Ed.). A nexus between the applicant and particular activities of security interest needed to be shown - all very much in keeping with Hope's civil libertarian position and a marker of where the Australian intelligence and security agencies saw their priorities in the pre-Hilton Bombing environment.
In 1986 the ASIO Act was amended to take into consideration the recommendations of Hope in the RCASIA.
He held a seat on the Senate of the University of Sydney
from 1970 till 1975 when he became the first Chancellor of the University of Wollongong
, a position he held until 1997.
Hope was the Chairman of the New South Wales Heritage Council from 1978 to 1993 and was also the Chairman of the Law Reform Commission from 1990 to 1993.
After his death in 1999, the University of Wollongong awarded him an honorary Doctorate in Law. He is survived by his wife, Mrs. June Hope.
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
, CMG
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....
(24 July 1919 – 12 October 1999) was a Justice
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
of the New South Wales Supreme Court and Royal Commissioner.
Biography
Justice Hope received his Bachelor of Laws from the University of SydneyUniversity of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
before being raised to the New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
Bar on 26 October 1945.
Appointed a Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
in 1960, he was raised to the position of Justice
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
of the New South Wales Supreme Court in 1969. Hope was finally made a Justice
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
of Appeal of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
judiciary system in 1972, a position he held until his retirement in 1989.
He led two Royal Commission
Royal Commission
In Commonwealth realms and other monarchies a Royal Commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue. They have been held in various countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia...
s and one review of Australia's intelligence and security agencies and operations.
Justice Hope was awarded the honour of Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....
(CMG) in 1977. In 1989 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(AC), Australia's highest civilian honour.
Royal commissions
In 1974, Prime Minister Gough WhitlamGough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
appointed Justice Hope to head the Royal Commission into Intelligence and Security (RCIS). Completed in 1977, Hope reconfirmed the need for a national security intelligence agency and made a range of recommendations for improvement across the board of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is Australia's national security service, which is responsible for the protection of the country and its citizens from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference, politically-motivated violence, attacks on the Australian defence system, and...
(ASIO)'s scope. Of note is the recommendation that areas of ASIO interest expand from traditional Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
counter-espionage to include sabotage, terrorism and what Hope called "active measures" by foreign agents operating against Australia and her interests. While the overhaul of the organisation did expand its powers, it also made ASIO accountable to the government and thus the Australian people. One side-effect of the RCIS saw ASIO advertise in major Australian newspapers for intelligence officers as well as employing women for the first time.
Justice Hope was again commissioned only a year later in 1978 to conduct the Protective Security Review (PSR) into protective security arrangements for the Commonwealth
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
as well as co-operation between national and state cooperation on protective security following the bombing of the Hilton Hotel in Sydney during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting (CHOGRM).
While the review nominally targeted "protective security", it was the threat of international terrorism in Australia that was at the heart of Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser
Malcolm Fraser
John Malcolm Fraser AC, CH, GCL, PC is a former Australian Liberal Party politician who was the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia. He came to power in the 1975 election following the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government, in which he played a key role...
's decision to use Hope's experience in the area of Australia's intelligence services. When completed in 1979, the review essentially ended up probing, "in a broad sense, terrorism possibilities in Australia, and ways, and means of State, Territory and Commonwealth co-operation in dealing with the threat of terror". Again as a direct result of his recommendations, government policy on intelligence and security changed. Hope designated ASIO as the agency responsible for producing national threat assessments in the field of terrorism and politically motivated violence and at the end of 1979, a new ASIO Act came into being which implemented many of Hope's recommendations from the RCIS and the PSR. At the same time, the Security Appeals Tribunal, another of Hope's RCIS recommendations, was bought into being.
1983 saw the expulsion of Valery Ivanov
Valery Ivanov
Valery Nikolayevich Ivanov was a Soviet diplomat.As First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy to Australia, he was expelled on 22 April 1983 under suspicion of being a spy after allegedly trying to recruit Australian Labor Party member David Combe....
, the First Secretary for the Soviet Embassy, for espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
activities. The publicity surrounding the affair saw the Hawke
Bob Hawke
Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC GCL was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991 and therefore longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister....
Government commission Hope again to look into intelligence issues. Hope completed the Royal Commission into Australia's Security and Intelligence Agencies (RCASIA) in 1984 and made a range of logical and basic recommendations (in terms of the evolution of policies of the time) that again altered the parameters that Australia's intelligence agencies operated under and bought them into the political and cultural paradigms of the 1980s. One of Justice Hope's RCASIA recommendations was that the ASIO Act expressly provide that it is not the purpose of the Act that the right of lawful advocacy, protest or dissent should be affected or that exercising those rights should, by themselves, constitute activity prejudicial to security. This recommendation was important from a cultural aspect in the sense that it effectively removed security agencies from suppression of civil protest and dissent in Australia. He also recommended the creation of the office of Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to oversee and hold accountable the various agencies. As if to highlight the need for such a position, only the same year RCASIA was commissioned, the Security Appeals Tribunal ruled in a case against ASIO where they had given an unfavourable security assessment on a member of the Australian Communist Party, that membership of the Communist Party of Australia did not warrant a recommendation against the grant of access to classified national security material (such as required by their job - Ed.). A nexus between the applicant and particular activities of security interest needed to be shown - all very much in keeping with Hope's civil libertarian position and a marker of where the Australian intelligence and security agencies saw their priorities in the pre-Hilton Bombing environment.
In 1986 the ASIO Act was amended to take into consideration the recommendations of Hope in the RCASIA.
Public life
Outside of the judicial system, Justice Hope was known also a university senator and chancellor, a patron and promoter of the performing arts, (and) a civil libertarian .He held a seat on the Senate of the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
from 1970 till 1975 when he became the first Chancellor of the University of Wollongong
University of Wollongong
The University of Wollongong is a public university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney...
, a position he held until 1997.
Hope was the Chairman of the New South Wales Heritage Council from 1978 to 1993 and was also the Chairman of the Law Reform Commission from 1990 to 1993.
After his death in 1999, the University of Wollongong awarded him an honorary Doctorate in Law. He is survived by his wife, Mrs. June Hope.