Speech delivered by Justice Emilios Kyrou, President of the Administrative Review Tribunal, at the Annual Dinner of the Society of Notaries of Victoria, 28 August 2025

Good evening. I would like to thank the Society for inviting me to attend this dinner. It is a pleasure to be here. 

I was once a notary. I did not set out to become one, but I did so in circumstances that are intricately tied to the history of reform of the system of appointment of notaries in Victoria. That reform owes much to the determination of my good friend, Nick Venizelakos, to become a notary. 

As all of you are aware, until 5 June 2002, public notaries in Victoria were appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. After that day, as a result of the commencement of the Public Notaries Act 2001, notaries have been appointed by the Supreme Court of Victoria. That Act was enacted as a result of Nick’s campaign to change the appointment system from one which treated him as ineligible for appointment to one that provided him with an opportunity to be appointed.

I have chosen as the title of my presentation, ‘The Inside Story of the Enactment of the Public Notaries Act 2001’ because it focuses on Nick’s journey in becoming a notary.

Nick Venizelakos’ desire to be a notary

Nick’s desire to become a notary, and his campaign to change the appointment system to enable him to achieve his goal, began over 31 years ago, on 7 March 1994. That was the day that Nick was admitted to practice as a lawyer in Victoria. 

At that time, Nick was the only legal practitioner in Victoria who was qualified to practise law here as well as in Greece. He grew up in Greece and worked as a lawyer there before coming to Australia. Nick had to complete various law subjects and articles of clerkship before he could practise as a lawyer in Victoria.

Prior to his admission to practise in Victoria, Nick worked as a law clerk in a solicitor's office for nearly seven years. During that period, he developed a large client base of individuals and businesses that required the preparation and notarisation of powers of attorney and other documents for use in Greece for personal or commercial transactions.

Nick was able to prepare the documents, but clients had to incur the additional cost and inconvenience of taking the documents to the Greek Consulate, or to another solicitor who was also a notary, before Nick could proceed further with the transaction. Understandably, Nick wanted to become a notary so that he could provide a 'one stop' service for his clients.

When Nick contacted me in March 1994 and sought my assistance to realise his ambition of becoming a notary, I thought it would be a quick and easy exercise. Instead, Nick and I encountered several obstacles and had to pursue multiple avenues to overcome them, culminating in the enactment of the Public Notaries Act and Nick's appointment under that Act on 16 December 2002. I was also appointed on the same day and undertook notarial work at Mallesons Stephen Jacques in conjunction with my legal work.

Nick’s struggle to become a notary is fascinating. Before discussing it in greater detail, it is necessary to explain the history of appointment of notaries in Victoria.

History of appointment of notaries in Victoria

Notaries originated during the Roman Empire. Before the Reformation, the power to appoint notaries throughout Western Christendom lay with the Pope. The Pope delegated his powers of appointment to legates. In England, the right to practise as a notary was originally conferred through a licence or faculty granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the exercise of his legatine powers.

The Papal jurisdiction in England ceased with the enactment of the Ecclesiastical Licences Act 1533. Under that Act, all faculties appointing notaries to practise in England were issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury through his Court of Faculties, of which the Master of the Faculties was the chief officer.

When the Australian colonies were established, the Master of the Faculties exercised the power to issue faculties to persons seeking to practise as notaries in the colonies. He continued to do so after Federation. Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania enacted statutes in 1979, 1981, 1985 and 1990 respectively, to replace the Archbishop of Canterbury with their Supreme Court as the appointor of notaries in their jurisdiction. In Victoria, the Archbishop remained the appointor for Victorian notaries until the Public Notaries Act took effect on 6 June 2002. 

In practice, the then unincorporated Society of Notaries of Victoria strongly influenced who could practise as a notary in this State. That is because the Master of the Faculties relied upon the Society's assessment of whether an application for appointment should be granted and nearly always accepted that assessment. 

Two restrictive requirements in the Society's assessment criteria had the effect of keeping the number of Victorian notaries low for many years. The first was that there must be a demonstrated need for the appointment of a notary in the vicinity in which the applicant practised as a solicitor. I will refer to this as the demonstrated need requirement. The second was that, in the absence of exceptional circumstances, the applicant must have practised as a principal solicitor in Victoria for at least 10 years. I will refer to this as the 10 year requirement.

Nick Venizelakos' application to become a notary 

When I looked into the system of appointment of notaries in Victoria in March 1994 in response to Nick Venizelakos’ request for assistance, I was surprised to discover these antiquated and anti-competitive features of the system.

As a first step in assisting Nick, I telephoned the then president of the Society, Philip Hamilton, to tell him about Nick's situation and of my intention to lodge an application to the Society seeking its support for Nick's appointment as a notary. Mr Hamilton replied that, as Nick was a newly admitted practitioner and did not satisfy the Society's 10 year requirement, it was unlikely that the Society would support his application. 

Nick and I were not deterred by Mr Hamilton's response because we considered that Nick's position was unique. He was the only Victorian solicitor with dual Greek-Australian legal qualifications and had a large number of clients with regular business dealings in Greece. 

So, on 24 June 1994, Nick lodged an application to the Society seeking its support for his appointment as a notary. The application was accompanied by letters of support from the Consul-General of Greece in Melbourne, the Melbourne representative of the Bank of Greece and the editor of the Greek language newspaper, Neos Kosmos. Professor Michael Pryles and I were nominated as Nick's referees. 

On 14 September 1994, the Society decided not to support Nick's application on the basis that he did not satisfy the demonstrated need and 10 year requirements. In relation to the demonstrated need requirement, it appears that an existing notary practised within what the Society considered to be sufficiently close proximity to Nick's then office in Johnston Street Fitzroy. 

The Society's refusal only served to harden Nick's resolve to become a notary. Following advice from Ray Finkelstein QC, who was subsequently appointed a judge of the Federal Court, Nick and I decided not to challenge the Society's decision but, instead, to adopt a three-pronged strategy. 

The first prong was to lodge a fresh application to the Society supported by letters and a petition signed by prominent businesspeople, politicians, lawyers and notaries. The second prong was to apply directly to the Court of Faculties if the Society refused the new application. The third prong was to write to the Victorian Attorney-General, Jan Wade, urging her to introduce legislation that conferred power to appoint notaries on the Supreme Court rather than the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

The first prong of the strategy was implemented on 7 December 1994, when a new application was delivered to the Society. The application was supported by a petition with 70 signatures and 17 letters. 

Nick's supporters included senior businesspeople (such as Chris Saris, the president of the Hellenic Business Forum); members of the Victorian Parliament (such as John Thwaites and Murray Thompson); members of the Commonwealth Parliament (such as Senators Bernard Cooney and Jim Short) and notaries (such as James Higgins, David Bailey and Sir Rupert Hamer).

Unfortunately, the Society was not moved. In August 1995, it refused to support the new application. 

The second prong of the strategy was implemented in early March 1996, with the assistance of the London office of Mallesons Stephen Jacques. Unfortunately, on 17 June 1997, the Master of the Faculties refused Nick's application on the basis that Nick had 'not been appointed as a Victorian solicitor for long enough'.

In his judgment of that day, the Master of the Faculties stated that the Society should consider changing the 10 year requirement to a five year requirement. He also stated that 'it is hard in the modern world to see the justification for [the demonstrated need requirement]'. The judgment is set out in Appendix VI of Paul Cariss’ book, Victorian Notary, that was published by the Society in 2018. 

The third prong of the strategy was implemented on 20 April 1995, when I wrote to the Attorney-General. On 4 July 1995, the question whether there should be a change to the system for appointment of notaries was referred to the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee of the Victorian Parliament together with the question whether Victoria should adopt the Commonwealth Evidence Act 1995. 

I made two written submissions to the Committee and gave evidence at a meeting of its ‘Evidence Subcommittee’ on 14 September 1995.

The arguments in support of reform of the system of appointment of notaries were set out by me in an article that was published in the Law Institute Journal in 1996. They were as follows: 

• The appointment of a person to perform a public function in Victoria by a foreign body, namely the Court of Faculties, was incompatible with Australia’s status as an independent nation.
• The role of the Archbishop of Canterbury was inconsistent with the cultural and religious diversity of modern Australian society.
• The system was cumbersome and expensive.
• The de facto decision maker, the Society of Notaries was an unincorporated association which was not accountable for its decisions.
• The Society applied criteria of its own making which were not always referable to the historical origins or nature of the office of notary and did not satisfy the public interest.
• The system had resulted in very few notaries being appointed to service Victoria's growing population and changing demographics.
• There was an inherent conflict between the Society's public duties and its private function of representing the interests of its members. The Court of Faculties had said in Fay v Society of Notaries for the State of Victoria [1909] P 15, 19 that notarial societies ‘are in the nature of trade unions, and their interest is on the side of limiting the number of notaries'.

The report of the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee titled Review of the Evidence Act 1958 (Vic) and Review of the Role and Appointment of Public Notaries was tabled in the Victorian Parliament on 8 October 1996. It recommended that the procedure for appointment of notaries be altered, with the power of appointment being vested in the Supreme Court.

Although the Government accepted the Committee's recommendation, its implementation was delayed while further consideration was given to the Evidence Act aspects of the Committee's report.

Following the September 1999 election, the Bracks Labor Government assumed power. On 29 October 1999, I wrote to the new Attorney-General, Rob Hulls, urging him to 'adopt as a priority for legislative reform the system of appointment of notaries public in Victoria'. He supported the reform, resulting in the enactment of the Public Notaries Act. 

During the Parliamentary Debates on the Public Notaries Bill 2001, some members of Parliament (including Murray Thompson, Ted Baillieu and Jenny Mikakos) acknowledged the contribution that Nick and I had made to the reform of the system of appointment of notaries in Victoria.

Appointment of Nick Venizelakos and myself as notaries 

As you are all aware, the key features of the Public Notaries Act are: the Supreme Court appoints notaries; only lawyers who have practised as a principal for at least five years can be appointed (however, this requirement can be dispensed with or varied in individual cases); and applicants have to complete an approved course of study. Such a course - a Graduate Diploma in Notarial Practice - was established by the Sir Zelman Cowen Centre of Victoria University.

The Public Notaries Act provided that existing Victorian notaries were exempt from its appointment requirements if, within six months of the commencement of the Act, they signed the Roll of Public Notaries to be kept by the Supreme Court.

Although I had not set out to become a notary, having pursued a change in the law for so long, I decided to undertake the approved course with Nick. On 31 October 2002, we qualified for the award of a Graduate Diploma in Notarial Practice. 

On 16 December 2002, Nick and I were the first individuals to be appointed notaries under the new statutory regime. The ceremony took place in the Banco Court. The then Chief Justice, John H Phillips, presided. Two other applicants were appointed on the same day.

When I was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court in May 2008, I took the view that, just as I could not practise as a lawyer, I should not be able to practise as a notary. Accordingly, on 8 May 2008, I filed with the Court a request that my name be removed from the Roll of Public Notaries with effect from 13 May 2008. 

Conclusion

Nick Venizelakos continues to practise as a solicitor and notary. On 3 May 2016, his son John Venizelakos, who works with Nick as a solicitor, was admitted to practice as a notary. I believe that Nick and John are the only father and son in Victoria who practise together as notaries. 

Although the challenges that Nick faced in becoming a notary were frustrating, he is pleased with the end result. He feels vindicated but is not cross with the Society. In fact, he is a keen supporter of the Society and is a regular attendee at its annual dinner. Both he and his son John are here tonight.

Thank you very much.