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Potty Mouth Solicitor Dispatched ... NSW Court of Appeal takes dim view of solicitor who laced his correspondence with disrespectful insults ... Insufficiently professional ... Arrived from Greece with only his underpants ... No contrition ... Anthony Kanaan files ... Read more >>

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Review of the operation of the FCFCA ... No suggestion that the courts should be subsumed by the Federal Court of Australia ... Instead, it's largely not understood that the FCFC consists of two separate courts ... "Unfortunate nicknames" ... Consideration of name change urged, along with further review of the federal law jurisdiction ... On it goes ... Report >>

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"I've stopped six wars in the last - I'm averaging about a war a month. But the last three were very close together. India and Pakistan, and a lot of them. Congo was just and Rwanda was just done, but you probably know I won't go into it very much, because I don't know the final numbers yet. I don't know. Numerous people were killed, and I was dealing with two countries that we get along with very well, very different countries from certain standpoints. They've been fighting for 500 years, intermittently, and we solved that war. You probably saw it just came out over the wire, so we solved it ..."

President Donald Trump at a meeting in Scotland with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer ... July 28, 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


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Home Duties ... The dumping of Attorney General Mark Dreyfus ... Behind the scenes ... Bastardry among the brothers ... Unfinished business ... Family law, privacy ... Considerable policy and legislative results ... Here's Michelle Rowland as AG ... What are her priors? ... Polly Peck reports from the Gallery ... Read more >> 


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Abolish silks ... Sydney SC writes to the editor calling for abolition of the silk system ... Appointments are anachronistic ... It's not a matter of ability, only notability ... Secret blackballing ... "Corrupt" process ... Confessions from an insider who played the game ... From Justinian's Archive, October 24, 2002 ... Read more >> 


 

 

« The language of wine | Main | McCabe litigation took 10 years in two states »
Friday
Apr082011

A.J. Brown

What happens to a person who spends seven years immersed in the life of Michael Kirby? ... Professor A.J. Brown is the author of Michael Kirby: Paradoxes & Principles ... He's on Justinian's couch trying to explain himself

A.J. Brown: closely identifies with profiteroles

Professor A.J. Brown is the John F. Kearney Professor of Public Law at Griffith University.

Originally a Canberra lad (son of famed press gallery journalist Wallace Brown), he went to the University of New South Wales and later worked as an investigator for the Commonwealth Ombudsman and as associate to Justice (Tony) Fitzgerald, prez of the Queensland Court of Appeal.

He has run large research projects, such as the constitutional values survey and an empirical inquiry into public interest whistleblowing, which resulted in the publication of Whistling While They Work.

Brown's work on the Kirby biography commenced in 2003 and involved ploughing through 117 metres of personal and official papers dating back to the 1940s, interviews with more than 30 of the jurist's relatives and colleagues and access to hundreds of working papers and original drafts of judgments.

The investigation into how falsified documents were used in parliament to wrongly accuse the judge of improper behaviour and misuse of Commonwealth cars is ground breaking work.

Join Prof. Brown On the Couch ...

Describe yourself in three words.

Thoughtful, inquiring, reckless.

What are you currently reading?

Newspapers.

What's your favourite film?

Good Night, and Good Luck.

Who has been the most influential person in your life? 

Both my parents – Wal & Val Brown. 

If you hadn't become a lawyer and an academic what occupation would you like to have?

Novelist. Michael Kirby says I already am.

What is your favourite piece of music?

Currently ... "Blood Buzz Ohio" by The National.

What is your most recognised talent?

Refusal to accept that something can’t be done.

What words or phrases do you overuse?

"In fact ... however ... deep."

What is your greatest regret?

Not having kids at a younger age.

Whom do you envy and why?

Schoolfriends who always knew what they wanted to do in life, and just did it.

Why do a biography about Michael Kirby when so much is already known about him?

Because everyone knows about him but only relatively few have ever figured him out.

What was the most disturbing discovery you made about Michael Kirby?

That he had done five times more things and kept ten times more archives than even I had predicted.

What is your most disturbing personal obsession?

Refusal to accept that something can’t be done.

What's your most glamorous feature?

My Jimmy Pike ties (thanks Mum).

If you were a foodstuff, what would you be?

Profiteroles.

What human quality do you most distrust?

Disingenuousness.

What would you change about Australia?

The federal system.

Whom or what do you consider overrated?

Twitter, Facebook and excessive over-communication.

What would your epitaph say?

"Gone soaring" (I expect to be reincarnated as a wedge-tailed eagle).

What comes into your mind when you shut your eyes and think of the word "law"?

Power.

 

 

Michael Kirby: Paradoxes and Principles, by A.J. Brown. The Federation Press

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