A retired judge presiding over an Australian Royal Commission into corruption in the union movement has admitted he is incapable of sending email and does not own a computer.

Dyson Heydon – once a judge of the High Court, Australia's ultimate jurisdiction – revealed his utter cluelessness in a ruling [PDF] on his own behaviour. Heydon agreed, by email, to attend a fundraising function staged by Australia's ruling Liberal Party*. Which is a bad look: the Liberals are the party of the individual and business. The opposition Labor party draws most of its funding and membership from Australia's unions and therefore sought to have the commissioner stand down.

Heydon spent a week deciding if agreeing to attend the fundraising event could create the impression of bias and his ruling, in part, exonerates himself because he didn't read the emails about the event. Here's the relevant bit of the ruling:

At the outset, it should be noted that there is evidence that I have no computer and that all email correspondence is sent and received by my personal assistant (ACTU MFI-6). Indeed it is notorious among the legal profession that I am incapable of sending or receiving emails. The consequence is that I read emails only after they have been printed out for me.

Even when his personal assistant presented him printed emails, the commissioner says he did not read all of their contents, especially attachments.

Heydon dismisses the suggestion he should stand down from the Royal Commission on numerous grounds, among them an argument that it's not reasonable for a royal commissioner to read the entire contents of every email, especially those that aren't directly related to the Commission's work.

Along the way he describes email as “a form of communication oppressively compelling a speedy response”.

In that, at least, Heydon may be correct. ®

* The Liberal Party is best understood as an analog to the UK Conservative Party or the moderate wing of the US Republican party. It is in no way liberal in the way the word is used in the US.