Justice michael kirby biography of michael
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Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG
Michael Kirby was, until 2 February 2009, one of the seven Justices of Australia’s highest constitutional and appellate court, the High Court of Australia. He served there from his appointment on 6 February 1996. At the end of that service he was Australia’s longest serving judicial officer having been:
- A deputy president of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission 1975-1983;
- Inaugural chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission 1975-1984;
- A judge of the Federal Court of Australia 1983-1984;
- President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal 1984-1996;
- President of the Court of Appeal of Solomon Islands 1995-1996;
- A justice of the High Court of Australia 1996-2009.
In addition to these posts, Michael Kirby has served in many international and United Nations positions including two expert groups of the OECD, Paris, many bodies of the Commonwealth Secretariat, London and positions in the ILO, UNDP, UNESCO, UNODC, WHO Glob
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The Hon Michael Kirby AC
Citation delivered by Professor Terry Buddin SC Judge in Residence, School of Law at the University of Wollongong on the occasion of the admission of Michael Donald Kirby as a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) on 2 November 2016.
Chancellor, I present Michael Kirby.
Michael Kirby has distinguished the courts and the national discourse of Australia with rare grace and a sense of what is both right and fair. His achievement is uncommon in its scope. He has risen to the highest levels of the law and public life and, at the same time, he is well-known and liked by the general community. He has earned the accolade of being Australia’s most well-known judge.
Michael Kirby graduated from the University of Sydney with Bachelor degrees in Arts, Law and Economics and a Master of Laws with First-Class Honours. That 1960s’ campus was an extraordinary hothouse for thinkers and artists who later became international names. Never a mere spectator, Michael was actively
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Michael Kirby (judge)
Australian jurist and academic
Michael Donald KirbyAC CMG (born 18 March 1939) is an Australian jurist and academic who is a former Justice of the High Court of Australia, serving from 1996 to 2009.[1] He has remained active in retirement; in May 2013 he was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to lead an inquiry into human rights abuses in North Korea, which reported in February 2014.
Early life and education
[edit]Michael Donald Kirby was born on 18 March 1939 at Crown Street Women's Hospital to Donald and Jean Langmore (née Knowles) Kirby. He was the eldest of five siblings, followed by twins Donald William and David Charles (the latter died at 18 months from pneumonia), David, and Diana Margaret.[2] In 1943 his grandmother, Norma Gray, remarried and her second husband was Jack Simpson, National Treasurer of the Australian Communist Party. Although Kirby came to admire Simpson, neither he nor his immediate f