Angelo Vasta

Angelo Vasta QC (8 January 1941 – 29 September 2021) was a prominent Queen's Counsel and judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland (1984 to 1989). He was the first superior court judge with an Italian background to be appointed in Queensland, and the second to be appointed in Australia. In 1989 he was removed from the Supreme Court in Queensland by the Queensland Parliament. This is the only time in Australian history that a supreme court judge has been removed in this manner.

Biography

Angelo Vasta was born in Innisfail on 8 January 1941. He completed his education from Melbourne University in 1964. In 1967, he moved to Brisbane where Vasta was called to the Queensland bar in 1968, appointed a QC in 1980, Chief Crown prosecutor in 1981 and appointed to the Supreme Court in 1984. He maintained a successful private practice at the Queensland Bar before retiring on 1 July 2020.

On 24 October 1988, Vasta either stood down or was stood down as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland after evidence of his friendship with the suspended Queensland Police Commissioner Terence Lewis was given at the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption which contradicted statements made under oath during a defamation case in 1986, amongst other behaviours. He was formally removed from office on 8 June 1989 by an Act of the Queensland Parliament, the only occasion since Federation that any parliament in Australia has removed a Supreme Court judge. In 2017, Robbie Katter MP introduced a private member's bill to declare Vasta's removal from office invalid and have it reversed but the bill was subsequently rejected by a parliamentary committee.

Vasta's son, Ross Vasta MP, has been a member of the Australian House of Representatives since 2010, and previously served from 2004 to 2007.

Since 1 January 2015, another son, Salvatore Vasta, has been a judge of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia. Vasta's daughter-in-law, Salvatore's wife, is Magistrate Deborah Vasta, a Magistrate of the Magistrates Court of Queensland.

Vasta died in Brisbane, Queensland on 29 September 2021 aged 80.

See Also

• Salvatore Vasta

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