Angelo Vasta

The Honourable Angelo Vasta QC is a prominent Queen's Counsel and former judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland (1984 to 1989).[1]

Vasta was called to the bar in 1968 and appointed as a QC in 1980. He maintained a successful private practice at the Queensland Bar before retiring on 1 July 2020.[2]

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.[3] 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.[4][5] His removal is now considered controversial and attempts have been made to reverse the decision.[6] The most recent effort, pioneered by Bob Katter, failed in 2017.[7]

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.[8]

Since 1 January 2015, another son, Salvatore "Sal" Vasta, has been a judge of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia.[9] Vasta's daughter-in-law, Sal's wife, is Magistrate Deborah Vasta, a Magistrate of the Magistrates Court of Queensland.[10]