Crossbench senator Derryn Hinch has slammed the Victorian Supreme Court for threatening three Turnbull government ministers with contempt charges, saying the judiciary is not above criticism and he would have told the court to "go jump".
The parliamentarian with more experience of contempt of court than any other, Senator Hinch compared Friday's hearing - during which the trio retracted but did not apologise for their criticisms, in which they suggested the judiciary was too lenient when it comes to sentencing terrorism suspects - to scenes out of a Franz Kafka novel.
As senior Turnbull government ministers studiously refused to comment about the possible charges against Greg Hunt, Alan Tudge and Michael Sukkar, it was Senator Hinch - twice jailed for contempt - who declared "the system is rotten".
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"The three ministers were well within their rights to do what they did," he told Fairfax Media. "If I was the minister I would have told them to go jump. Courts are not inviolate."
​Amid an ongoing political debate about the sentencing of terrorism offenders, Mr Hunt accused the Victorian legal system last week of becoming a forum for "ideological experiments", Mr Sukkar said the judiciary should focus more on victims and less on terrorists' rights and Mr Tudge said some judges were "divorced from reality".
The three Victorian ministers – all qualified lawyers – now face being charged with contempt. If that happens, there is a possibility they could be disqualified from Parliament and put the government's slim majority at risk.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce on Sunday signalled he was keenly aware of the risks."If the court says that there's an issue here then I'm going to shut up," he told the ABC's Insiders program. "I want to do everything in my power to make sure it doesn't go badly, so I'm going to be saying nothing, and that's unusual for me."
Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg refused to back his colleagues' comments, saying "less is more at this particular time".
"All three are very close friends and colleagues, but despite that I can't comment on a case that is currently before the court," he said.
Labor meanwhile seized on comments Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made during a radio interview last week: "So you know, it's very clear that we are talking about the conduct of the judiciary and judicial decisions people are entitled to criticise them."
Shadow Attorney General Mark Dreyfus says Mr Turnbull should explain why he thought the comments were a good idea.
Senator Hinch was jailed for contempt of court for 15 days in 1986 after he publicly revealed a prior conviction of a paedophile priest during his trial.
In 2014, he was jailed for 50 days for breaching a suppression order about the criminal history of the man who murdered ABC journalist Jill Meagher.
Senator Hinch pointed out the ministerial trio's comments did not imperil the impartiality of any jury.
​"I watched the performance yesterday and those guys up there in their black robes, it was like something out of Kafka," he said. "If that's contempt of court, I couldn't give a shit."
Kafka's The Trial is a parable about bureaucratic totalitarianism in which a man is arrested and must defend himself from charges despite not knowing what the charges are.
Fellow crossbencher David Leyonhjelm also doubled down on his criticism after last week labelling the judiciary as "dear little daffodils".
"What the judges complain about is being labelled biased lefties. They may be personally indignant but they have no right to invoke contempt," he said.