Advisory Board
The advisory board of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies consists of leading Australian and international public lawyers.
Ian Cunliffe
Ian Cunliffe is a solicitor in private practice with his own firm. For the past 10 years he was a member of a large Australian legal partnerships. Prior to that Ian was successively head of the Legal Section of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Secretary and Director of Research of the Australian Law Reform Commission and chief executive of the Australian Constitutional Commission. At the beginning of his career, Ian was Associate to Sir Cyril Walsh at the High Court of Australia. He holds degrees in Arts and Law from the Australian National University. His constitutional interests focus on the role of the Constitution as a brake on government and as a guarantor of freedom of interference by government. He was the unsuccessful litigant (3:4) in the implied rights case Cunliffe v.The Commonwealth (1994) 182 CLR 272.
Dr Stephen Donaghue
Stephen is a Victorian barrister whose practice areas include constitutional and administrative law. In addition to winning the Supreme Court Prize as a law student at the University of Melbourne, Stephen also holds a doctorate from Oxford, where he studied after receiving a Menzies Memorial Scholarship in Law and a Commonwealth Scholarship. He practised with Minter Ellison in both Melbourne and London offices, and was Associate to Justice Hayne of the High Court of Australia. He is the author of Royal Commissions and Permanent Commissions of Inquiry (Butterworths 2001) and of numerous articles in leading journals in the public and commercial law fields.
Dr Gavan Griffith AO QC
Gavan Griffith was Solicitor-General of Australia from 1984 to 1997 and practices as counsel and
as an international arbitrator from chambers in Melbourne and at Essex Court Chambers, London.
as an international arbitrator from chambers in Melbourne and at Essex Court Chambers, London.
Peter Hanks QC
Peter Hanks practises predominantly in public law - administrative law and constitutional law. He appears regularly for Commonwealth and State government agencies, and against those agencies, in the Federal Court, High Court, Supreme Court, Commonwealth AAT and VCAT. He has published several books on constitutional law and administrative law. He is a principal contributor to Butterworths' "High Court and Federal Court Practice " and "Administrative Law Service".
Wendy Harris
Wendy Harris is a Melbourne barrister, specialising in constitutional and commercial law, with a particular interest in free expression. She has been involved in a number of leading constitutional cases, including Theophanous v Herald & Weekly Times; Kruger v Commonwealth; Kartinyeri v Commonwealth and Grain Pool of WA v Commonwealth. She has an active public law practice, and has spoken and written in national and international fora on free expression and other constitutional issues. She is a member of the London-based Interights Freedom of Expression Project Advisory Panel.
Justice Christopher Maxwell
Justice Maxwell is currrently the President of the Court of Appeal. As a barrister his interests lie in the field of public law - administrative law, constitutional law, FOI and related areas such as taxation and customs. He has appeared in a number of constitutional and other cases in the High Court, dealing with issues ranging from environmental law and copyright to taxation and industrial law. Chris has had a range of experience with boards and Commissions of Inquiry as: Counsel assisting the Mental Health Review Board in the Garry David case (1990); Junior Counsel for the State Bank of Victoria in the Tricontinental Royal Commission (1990-92); Counsel assisting the Judicial Inquiry into the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (1994-5). He has also had a variety of commercial experience, including as junior counsel for the State of Victoria in its negligence action against the former auditors of Tricontinental.
Debbie Mortimer SC
Debbie Mortimer practises mostly in Public Law, Administrative Law, Migration, Anti-Discrimination, Native Title/Aboriginal issues, FOI Jurisdictions: Tribunals, Supreme, Federal and High Courts, including appellate work. She has experience as an academic and in practice in Medical Law and Ethics, especially IVF and related issues. She is a former Associate to Sir Gerard Brennan.
Mark Moshinsky
Mark Moshinsky practices mainly in Commercial Law, Conflict of Laws, Constitutional Law, Administrative Law and Taxation. Mark studied law at the University of Melbourne 1984-1988 and was awarded the Supreme Court Prize 1988. He completed a Bachelor of Civil Law with First Class Honours at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
Stephen McLeish
Stephen McLeish is a Victorian barrister practising mainly in the areas of Commercial Law, Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. He studied law at the University of Melbourne and was awarded the Supreme Court Prize in 1986. He completed a Master of Laws degree at Harvard in 1991 concentrating on Constitutional Law. Before going to the Bar he also practised in commercial law with Arthur Robinson & Hedderwicks. Between 1988 and 1990 he was Associate to Sir Anthony Mason.
Brian Opeskin
Brian Opeskin has been a full-time Commissioner at the Australian Law Reform Commission since 31 July 2000. He led the Commission's inquiry on the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth) (The Judicial Power of the Commonwealth, ALRC 92, 2001), and jointly led the inquiry into the protection of human genetic information (Essentially Yours, ALRC 96, 2003), and into gene patenting and human health (Genes and Ingenuity, ALRC 99, 2004). He is now leading the inquiry into the sentencing of federal offenders. He has taught in the fields of constitutional law, federal courts, international law, and conflict of laws at Sydney University Law School, where he was an Associate Professor until July 2003. He has published many articles in these fields and has co-authored several books. He holds degrees in Economics and Law from the University of New South Wales, and a Bachelor of Civil Law degree from the University of Oxford. He was admitted as a barrister of the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1989.
Jason Pizer
Admitted to the Victorian Bar in 1999, Jason's areas of practise include Administrative Law (Judicial Review) and Administrative Law (Merits Review). From May 1994 until April 1995, prior to completing his articles at Mallesons Stephen Jaques, Jason worked as an associate to Sir Anthony Mason, the then Chief Justice of the High Court. Jason is currently the co-editor of Kyrou and Pizer, Victorian Administrative Law, the author of the chapter entitled "Applications to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal" in the Lawyers Practice Manual, and has published articles in numerous journals on various areas of the law, including the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, freedom of information, company law, intellectual property law, torts law and equity.
Pamela Tate SC, Solicitor-General for Victoria
Pamela Tate was appointed Solicitor-General in July 2003. She is the first female Solicitor-General appointed for the state of Victoria. Prior to her appointment, she practised at the Bar principally in the field of public law. She had graduated from Monash University in 1987 with a first-class honours degree in law and was awarded the Butterworth’s research prize for her honours thesis. Before being called to the Bar in 1991, she had worked as an associate to High Court justice Sir Daryl Dawson for two years. She also has a first-class honours degree in philosophy from Otago University, and spent three years doing postgraduate studies in philosophy at Oxford University after obtaining a Commonwealth Scholarship.
Justice Richard R S Tracey
Justice Tracey was appointed to the Federal Court of Australia in July 2006. A former student and senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne, Richard Tracey was Queen's Counsel in Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales. His civil practice concentrated on administrative law and industrial law. He also had a long and distinguished military practise including as Judge Advocate and Reviewing Judge Advocate (Defence Force Magistrate). He was a member of various Commonwealth tribunals and was senior counsel assisting the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry.