The Hon Sir Francis Gerard Brennan AC KBE QC (1928-2022)

02/06/2022

Vale

Sir Gerard Brennan AC KBE QC, former chief justice of the High Court of Australia, honorary life member of the New South Wales Bar Association, has died.

Born in Toowoomba, Queensland in 1928, Sir Gerard was admitted to the Queensland Bar in December 1951, where he practised mainly in common law and constitutional law. He took silk in 1965. He was president of the Queensland Bar between 1974 and 1976 and president of the Australian Bar Association during that same period.

Throughout his distinguished career in the law, Sir Gerard led the way in establishing and upholding rights for First Nations people, beginning in 1974 when he represented the Northern Land Council in the Woodward Royal Commission into Aboriginal Land Rights in the Northern Territory. In February 1981 he was appointed to the High Court of Australia, at a time when there were still appeals to the Privy Council. He was appointed as the tenth chief justice in 1995 and led the court at a time when it was under intense criticism for judicial activism following its decision in Wik.

Sir Gerard was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Order of the British Empire – Knights Commander (Civil) (KBE) in 1981, and Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) on 26 January 1988 in recognition of service to the law. He was made an honorary life member of the New South Wales Bar Association in May 1983 and patron of the Indigenous Barristers Trust – The Mum Shirl Fund. He delivered the inaugural Sir Maurice Byers Lecture in 2000.

An obituary will be published in the next edition of Bar News.