The Hon. Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG (b. 1939) was a Justice of the High Court of Australia from 1996 to 2009. After graduating in law from the University of Sydney, Kirby worked as a solicitor and then a barrister. In 1974 he was appointed as a Deputy President of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and from 1975 was also inaugural chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission. Appointed Judge of the Federal Court of Australia in 1983, the following year he became President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal. In 1996 he was appointed as one of the seven Justices of the High Court. During his first year, Kirby was plunged into the Wik Peoples vs The State of Queensland case, the first major Indigenous land title case following the Mabo decision of 1992. In December 1996 Kirby was among the judges who ruled that the grant of certain Queensland pastoral leases under past Land Acts did not extinguish Indigenous people's rights and interests in the land involved – referring personally to the 'duty which the Crown owed, in honour, to native people who were under the Crown's protection'. In response to the Wik decision, in 1998 the Australian Government amended the 1993 Native Title Act, which had arisen out of the Mabo case. Kirby was President of the International Commission of Jurists from 1995 to 1998; during this period, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by his alma mater, the University of Sydney. He has led or served on numerous international committees on subjects relating to human rights, ethics, bioethics and health.
Gift of the artist 2001
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