EDITOR'S NOTE: The High Court overturned Cardinal George Pell's conviction for historic child sex offences in a judgment handed down April 7, 2020. In a unanimous decision all seven High Court judges found Victoria's Court of Appeal should not have upheld Pell's conviction. It found the evidence could not support a guilty verdict.

An article published in the conservative journal Quadrant which casts aspersions on female judges involved in the George Pell case is likely in contempt of court, legal experts have said.

In the piece published last week, failed Australian Conservatives candidate Paul Collits alleged the case against Cardinal Pell was partly driven by a cabal of feminists including former prime minister Julia Gillard.

Chief Justice of Victoria Anne Ferguson upheld George Pell's conviction in a two to one majority decision. Supplied

Collits also attacked Anne Ferguson, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria who presided over Pell's appeal, as a "childless" feminist corrupted by the "MeToo" movement.

He suggested the case against the Cardinal was promulgated by "the sisterhood of strong women", singling out Ms Gillard for calling the royal commission into child sexual abuse, lawyer Vivian Waller who represented the former choirboy abused by Pell in the 1990s, as well as Belinda Wallington, the magistrate who committed Pell to stand trial.

Collits said it should be "explored" whether and to what extent "a certain kind of feminist imbued with anti-clerical sentiment has been hovering in the background since the get-go".

He reserved particular opprobrium for "the childless Ferguson", deriding her as "a career contracts solicitor".

"[Her] willingness to believe everything the complainant claimed, plus her scepticism at all manner of exculpatory evidence, reeks of the legal #MeTooism now embedded in the Victorian justice system," Collits wrote.

"Her judgment on the appeal hammers even more nails into the coffin of justice for those accused of sexual offences."

In August, Justice Ferguson upheld Pell's conviction for sexually abusing a choirboy in the 1990s, in a two-to-one majority decision. Pell has asked the High Court to hear an appeal.

The Supreme Court of Victoria and the Office of Public Prosecutions declined to comment on the Quadrant article, which was titled George Pell and the SJW Fembots (SJW = social justice warrior, a pejorative term for advocates of social progress).

However, the country's top contempt law experts told The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age there is a strong chance the article has scandalised the court, an offence in which a person seeks to denigrate judges or the court to undermine confidence in the institution.

Justice Chris Maxwell, Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and Justice Mark Weinberg dismissed Pell's appeal in August. Supplied

"There is a fairly strong possibility [the] article would constitute a scandalising contempt," said Jason Bosland, an associate professor of law at the University of Melbourne.

"It has either come close to the line or it has gone over it. The general tenor of the article is suggesting that these judicial officers have been motivated by their own feminist values."

Michael Douglas, a senior law lecturer at the University of Western Australia, said the piece was "dangerously close" to conduct that scandalises the court, and "potentially" in breach.

"It looks deliberately calculated to undermine the authority of a magistrate who made a judicial decision which the author disagrees with," he said.

"It is OK to criticise courts' decision-making if you do so reasonably and in an informed way. This article is not that."

University of Sydney law professor David Rolph noted prosecutions for scandalising the court were "very rare" and had to be balanced against freedom of speech.

But he said "any publication that creates misgivings about a court or a judge's impartiality or motives" could be deemed scandalous.

Quadrant editor-in-chief Keith Windschuttle did not respond to a request for comment. However, last week in his own piece for the magazine he claimed Pell's crimes "simply could not have happened".

In March, Collits ran for the NSW state seat of Lismore for the Australian Conservatives and was described by his local newspaper as "a freelance writer, property investor and entrepreneur" who was formerly a member of the Liberal Party and the Nationals.

The Victorian Law Reform Commission is currently reviewing the laws of contempt in that state for Attorney-General Jill Hennessy.

Thirty-four media outlets and journalists are facing contempt charges for allegedly breaching suppression orders related to the Pell trial.