John Agius SC

A highly esteemed Senior Counsel and Head of Chambers, John maintains an expansive general law practice, largely comprising of public law, administrative law, common law, criminal law and work, health and safety matters. He also possesses a wealth of experience as Senior Counsel assisting commissions of inquiry and complex coronial inquests.

A significant part of John’s criminal practice involves judge only and jury appellate work for the State Government where indictable offences such as murder, terrorism related matters, fraud, insider trading, sexual assault, child sexual assault and extradition charges are alleged. He has also defended a significant number of these offences in New South Wales and elsewhere in the Commonwealth. The diversity of John’s practice is evidenced by his broad client base, which is comprised of government clients (Federal and State) and government-related bodies, institutional clients and private individual clients.

The jurisdictions in which he appears includes the High Court of Australia (appeals and special leave applications), the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal and Courts of Appeal in NSW and interstate. He has also been appointed to assist in a number of Federal and State Inquiries and Royal Commissions.

Possessing strong leadership skills, John delivers significant value through his strategic input, practical and collaborative approach. Given the size and complexity of matters in which he is regularly briefed, John has considerable experience commissioning staff and managing multi-disciplinary teams, constituting investigative lawyers, barristers, accountants, auditors and analysts in Commissions of Inquiry. He also has extensive experience managing the drafting of significant reports, as well as the executive side of Inquiries, including liaising with agencies at a high level. One of his matters, for example, required him to travel to the United Nations to negotiate and discuss pertinent issues. Such matters are typically document-intensive, requiring John and his team to also manage information technology systems effectively.

With extensive cross-jurisdictional litigation experience, John’s superior advocacy and cross-examination skills, coupled with his ability to traverse complex legal and factual issues at the outset of a matter in order to achieve early resolution, is one of his many key strengths. John has also conducted matters as a Mediator.

In addition to his appointment as Senior Counsel in 1995 in NSW, John was appointed Kings Counsel (at the time, Queens Counsel) in Western Australia.

John appeared for the State of NSW and each of its branches/departments during the Royal Commission into the institutional sexual assault. There were many examples sexual abuse investigated by the Royal Commission which involved the State and other institutions where the State had an interest. John advised the State in many of the matters investigated by the Royal Commission and appeared in hearings in each of the matters involving the State, over some years that the Commission sat in NSW.

John also appeared for the State (formally the Department of Education within which a section dealt with Aboriginal Affairs) between 2015 and 2020 in well over one hundred and fifty matters, many of which involved allegations of mistreatment including sexual assault of first nations children, instructed by the State Crown Solicitor. John’s work here began with setting up a matrix of damages dealing with the various forms of sexual and other abuse of aboriginal children, which was used throughout the period in which these matters were dealt with, in an effort to ensure that applicants over the whole of the period during which a compensation scheme established by the government was administered fairly. John settled the content of a formal apologies that were delivered to each of the claimants. He attended over 150 settlement conferences which resolved those claims and ended with settlement of nearly every claim. Those claimants were represented by senior and junior counsel.

John has acted for the State of NSW in a number of cases brought in the NSW Supreme Court for historical child sexual assault. One in which he was briefed in this year settled with a verdict for the defendant (the State) and others settled close to the hearing dates.