Law, Justice and Other Challenges

Selected Speeches and Papers of Michael Kirby

By: Dr Paul Vout KC (Editor)

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Hardcover | 15 November 2025

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832 Pages

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This book contains a selection of papers and speeches by Michael Kirby covering half a century - from 1975 to 2025. He reflects on his journey from childhood in 1950s Australia and through law school and legal practice to his work as inaugural President of the Australian Law Reform Commission, President of the Court of Appeal of NSW and Justice of the High Court of Australia along with other posts. He has advanced the equality principle for women and all minority groups, including gays and other sexual minorities. In a number of the papers, Michael Kirby examines his struggle with his sexuality and society's evolving view on the subject. He offers an essay on his partner of fifty-five years, Johan van Vloten. The topics of the papers and speeches included here reveal Michael Kirby's wide range of interests and the changes that Australia and the world has undergone, to which he has contributed. How would computers, just emerging in the 1970s, affect privacy and society generally? Should Australia recognise First Nations Peoples' customary law? How would the globalisation of media affect judicial independence? Does the Australian Constitution condone indefinite detention? Michael Kirby's insights and views are always insightful, occasionally prophetic and, although in a minority at the time, sometimes vindicated by what followed. There will be something in this collection for most readers: not only lawyers, fans of autobiography, or members of the LGBTIQ community. This collection is as much a journey through the late modern history of Australia and the world as it has progressed, often urged on by an impatient Michael Kirby.

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