Melbourne Law School Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies

Home > People > Centre Associates

Centre Associates

In addition to the Faculty members, the Centre Associates invaluably contribute to the operation of the Centre:

Geoffrey Lindell

Geoff Lindell is a Professorial Fellow of the University of Melbourne and also holds appointments as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Adelaide University and the Australian National University. He joined the Melbourne University Law School in 1994 and he retired from full-time teaching in early 2002. Since that time he has continued to research and write, in addition to being available to undertake some sessional teaching and consulting. Throughout his long career he has taught and published widely in the field of Australian constitutional and public law, including the publication, as editor, Future Directions in Australian Constitutional Law (1994), senior co - editor of Parliament: The Vision in Hindsight (2001 with R Bennett) and also as co - author of Sawer's Australian Constitutional Cases (4th ed., 1982 with Professor L Zines).

Geoff served as a member of the Distribution of Powers Advisory Committee to the Constitutional Commission (1986 - 1987), and was a consultant to the Australian Constitutional Convention (1975 - 1985). Before joining the Australian National University Law School in 1975, where he taught until the end of 1993, he held a senior position in the Commonwealth Attorney - General's Department and has frequently since acted as a consultant to the same Department. He appeared as counsel in two major High Court constitutional cases (Fencott v Muller (1983) and McGinty v Western Australia.

Graham Hassall

Graham Hassall is Professor of Governance at the Pacific Institute of Advanced Studies in Development and Governance at the University of the South Pacific. From 1990 until 2000 he was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies. He holds degrees in Education (Alexander Mackie C.A.E.) and history (The University of Sydney), and a Ph.D in Pacific Studies from the Australian National University. He is interested in constitutional reform processes and the development of governance, leadership, and peace-building capacities in small developing states.

Brian Opeskin

Brian Opeskin is Professor and Head of the School of Law at the University of the South Pacific, based in Port Vila, Vanuatu. He was a full-time Commissioner at the Australian Law Reform Commission from 31 July 2000 until 2006. 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 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 authored or edited several books, the most recent being The Promise of Law Reform (2005) with David Weisbrot. Brian 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.

Kim Rubenstein

Kim Rubenstein is Professor and Director of the Civil Centre for International and Public Law at the Australian National University (ANU).  Previously Kim was an Associate Professor in Law at the University of Melbourne, lecturing in Constitutional and Administrative Law, Migration Law and Advanced Administrative Law. Kim was awarded both a Fulbright scholarship and the Sir Robert Menzies Scholarship, completing her Masters in Law at Harvard University. Kim is also a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria and the High Court of Australia and, prior to taking up her position with the University of Melbourne in 1993, Kim practised as a solicitor at Corrs Chambers Westgarth. Kim has a special interest in citizenship law and in 1999 organised the University of Melbourne conference "Individual, Community, Nation: 50 Years of Australian Citizenship" (see www.law.unimelb.edu.au/events/citizen for more information). The following year Rubenstein (ed): Individual, Community, Nation; 50 years of Australian Citizenship (Australian Scholarly Press, 2000) was launched by the Centre. Kim is also the author of Australian Citizenship Law in Context (Lawbook Co, 2002).

Marian Schoen

Marian Schoen is the Director, Corporate Services and Public Affairs at the National Native Title Tribunal, Perth. Before joining the Tribunal, Ms Schoen was from 1996-2000 the Executive Director of the Constitutional Centenary Foundation in Melbourne, where she was involved with the CCCS in promoting public discussion and understanding of the Australian constitutional system. From 1994 - 1995, she was with Strategic Review section of the New South Wales Ministry for the Arts. Her experience in constitutional review and administrative law has included positions as Secretary to the Advisory Committee on Executive Government (Constitutional Commission 1986-88), Principal Legal Counsel to the Ombudsman Commission of Papua New Guinea and Secretary/Research Officer in the 1982 Royal Commission into the Tasmanian Constitution Act 1934. She has also practised in arts and media law with the specialist firm, Stephens Innocent, London.She is admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of Australia and the Supreme Courts of Tasmania, New South Wales and Papua New Guinea. She graduated from the University of Tasmania in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts/Laws, and in 1991 completed a Masters in Arts Administration at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW.

Fiona Wheeler

Fiona Wheeler (BA/LLB(Hons), PhD (ANU)) is a Reader and Sub-Dean in the Faculty of Law, Australian National University. In recent years she has taught constitutional law and introduction to law. Her research is primarily in the area of constitutional law, with a particular interest in courts and the judicial system, including separation of powers. Her various publications include a number of articles on aspects of Chapter III of the Constitution. With Brian Opeskin, she co-edited The Australian Federal Judicial System (Melbourne University Press, 2000). She is Comments Editor of the Public Law Review, a contributor to the Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia (2001) and has served on the Executive of the Australian Association of Constitutional Law.

John Williams

Dr John Williams is a Professor in the Law School at the University of Adelaide. He holds undergraduate degrees from the University of New South Wales and University of Tasmania and a PhD from the Australian National University. His research interests are in the area of constitutional law and theory and Australian legal history.

See also Centre Associates from:


top of page