Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

Balkan intrigues ... Old coppers stagger into the Croatian Six inquiry ... 15-year jail terms in 1980 for alleged terrorism ... Miscarriage of justice under review ... Verballing ... Loading-up ... Old fashioned detective "work" ... Evidence so far ... Hamish McDonald reports ... Read more >> 

Politics Media Law Society


Cohn Man ... The ghost of Roy Cohn and the remaking of politics … Cancelling The Apprentice … Anticipatory obedience … NACC Major General’s partially apprehended … Stickler for rectitude … Meretricious sexual services ... Read on ... 

This area does not yet contain any content.
Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

Blue sky litigation ... Another costly Lehrmann decision ... One more spin on the never-never ... Arguable appeal discovered in the bowels of the Gazette of Law & Journalism ... Odious litigants ... Could Lee J have got it wrong on the meaning of rape? ... Calpurnia reports from the Defamatorium ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


Qld Bar 'n Grill announces eight new KCs for 2024 ... Details >>

Justinian's Bloggers

London Calling ... Vitamin D deficiency ... Anti-vax solicitor birched for "friendly warning" to schools ... Budget measures hit private school fee payers and their personal jets ... Robing room "humour" ... Equality and sensitivity training missing in action ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt reports from Blighty ... Read more >> 

"Calls to produce scalps publicly and promptly are unhelpful."  

Major Gen. Paul Brereton, Commissioner of the National Corruption Concealment Commission, defending his secretive and snail paced agenda ... Speaking in Adelaide at a Public Sector Governance Forum ... November 15, 2024  ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Vale Percy Allan AM ... Obit for friend and fellow-traveller ... Prolific writer on economics and politics ... Public finance guru ... Technocrat with humanity and broad interests ... Theatre ... Animals ... Art ... Read more ... 


Justinian's archive

A triumph for Victorian morality ... Ashton v Pratt ... In the sack with Dick Pratt ... Meretricious sexual services renders contract void on public policy grounds ... Justice Paul Brereton applies curious moral standard ... A whiff of hypocrisy ... Doubtful finding ... Artemus Jones reporting ... From Justinian's Archive, January 24, 2012 ... Who knew the NACC commissioner had strong views on the sanctity of marriage ... 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

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Editor Permission Required
You must have editing permission for this entry in order to post comments.