Christopher Beale has been a

Justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...

in the Trial Division of the

Supreme Court of Victoria The Supreme Court of Victoria is the highest court in the Australian state of Victoria. Founded in 1852, it is a superior court of common law and equity, with unlimited and inherent jurisdiction within the state. The Supreme Court comprises ...

since 2 September 2014, sitting mainly in the

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

division of that court. Beale's career in criminal law began in 1986 when he became a

duty lawyer A duty solicitor, duty counsel, or duty lawyer, is a solicitor whose services are available to a person either suspected of, or charged with, a criminal offence free of charge, if that person does not have access to a solicitor of their own and us ...

for the

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. He joined the Victorian Bar in 1988, and in 2007 was appointed a Crown Prosecutor. He returned to the

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in 2011, and was appointed Senior Counsel in 2012 and

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in 2013. As Supreme Court Justice, Beale was responsible for delivering the judgement in the high-profile manslaughter of Karen Ristevski. In 2018, during the criminal proceedings of a man accused of plotting a Christmas Day terrorism attack, Beale's decision to ban the wife of the accused from the court's public gallery gained significant media coverage. Beale banned the women from seeing her husbands proceedings due to the fact that she was wearing a niqāb. Beale said "whilst all are welcome in my court, spectators in the public gallery must have their faces uncovered, chiefly for security reasons" and that "once there are multiple spectators in the public gallery wearing niqabs and traditional Islamic dress, working out who was who if something happened in court might not be a simple matter, especially as such dress tends to be very similar."

References

Judges of the Supreme Court of Victoria Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Australian King's Counsel {{Australia-law-bio-stub