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Family and colleagues remember a great friend, father and quintessential gentleman

Mr Justice Thomas Gall  1942-2006

With the death  of High Court Judge Thomas Gall, Hong Kong lost not only a humane and indefatigable jurist but a fine human being,  friends and family said yesterday.

Mr Justice Gall, who arrived in Hong Kong from South Australia in 1973, died peacefully at Queen Mary Hospital on Friday after a four-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 63. 'He spent more of his life here than in Australia,' his wife, Barbara, said yesterday. 'He was a brilliant husband ...  my best friend.'

Those close to him describe a cheerful man  whose life was defined by two great passions - his family and the law. 'This was a really, really special guy,' said fellow judge Frank Stock, of the Court of Appeal, adding: 'He was just the quintessential gentleman.'

Court of Appeal judge Michael Stuart-Moore said: 'He was genuinely interested in people and never looked down on anyone.'

Mr Justice Gall grew up in rural South Australia and after graduating from the University of Adelaide in 1965, he went into practice in the coastal town of Kadina.

His son Nicholas recounted that the area he  covered was so vast he  did his rounds by light aircraft.

It was a side of the job that appealed to his adventurous spirit  - he was also an avid fly fisherman, scuba diver and classic car enthusiast.

'Most people would take four steps forward to see something, but Tom would always take the fifth,' Mrs Gall said. 'It often landed him in the ocean ... he shot himself once.'

On  a goat hunt with friends,  his  second world war German pistol  fell out  and went off. The bullet went in near his hip and exited from his shoulder, missing all his vital organs.

'He was in the back of a utility for three hours as they carted him to hospital,' his son said. 'His friends made him smoke a cigarette to see if any smoke came out the hole - they wanted to see if he'd punctured his lung.'

The Galls' move to Hong Kong was prompted by the death of the young lawyer's mentor, then South Australian attorney-general Colin Rowe. 'Tom got a job as a lecturer at a law school in Afghanistan but we decided against that because of the children (Nicholas and sister Libby),' Mrs Gall said.  Afghanistan's loss was Hong Kong's gain as the young family were smitten by the city  the moment they stepped off the plane.

As he worked his way up through the ranks of the then Legal Department, and subsequently the judiciary, Mr Justice Gall  sought out the most challenging  cases. 'He absolutely adored the law,' Mrs Gall said. 'It wasn't the law itself, but the people. He felt very strongly that everyone deserved to be heard.'

He was one of the first lawyers to prosecute cases for the Independent Commission Against Corruption, and as a judge tried many of Hong Kong's most notorious criminal cases.

'As he became more senior, he started sitting quite regularly in the Court of Appeal,' said Mr Justice Stock, 'and what came through to us was his anxiousness to be fair'.

He helped pioneer the use of video links to protect vulnerable witnesses and worked a great deal for charity.

Sansan Ching,  director of the Hong Kong Council of Early Childhood Education and Services, said Mr Justice Gall's  passion for his own children inspired his 15 years of contributions to her organisation.

His dedication to  people was one of his defining attributes, Mrs Gall said. And while she felt that willingness to take on other people's problems may have played a role in his illness, she was sure it was also what kept him going far longer than the experts had predicted.  'People were always calling and he never turned anyone away,' she said.



Law man with a sense of adventure