Speeches to note: Australia's Contribution to the Common Law

24/09/2007

In this�speech, which�was delivered at the Singapore Academy of Law on 20 September,�the Hon A M Gleeson AC, chief justice of Australia,�asserts that the High Court does not pursue "self-consciously any intellectual or political fashion."

The court, he said,�has "always been in the mainstream of the common law tradition, and its decisions generally have been in line with decision of its counterparts elsewhere." He cites examples, which show it "acting sometimes creatively and sometimes traditionally, sometimes boldly and sometimes cautiously, but in all cases consistently in the application of a judicial method [and] in the mainstream of the common law tradition".� View the chief justice's speech>

24 September 2007