Francis Gerard Brennan

Sir Gerard Brennan is one of the most significant Australian jurists of the 20th century. Born in Rockhampton in 1928 into a pious Catholic family, Brennan studied law at the University of Queensland and then achieved the highest accolades at the Bar. He was appointed Queen's Counsel, served as President of the Australian Bar Association, and also as President of the Queensland Bar Association. Brennan served as a judge of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory, as a judge of the Federal Court, as the first President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and on the High Court as a Justice (from 1981) and as Chief Justice of Australia from April 1995 to May 1998. He also held a judicial role after his retirement in Australia, as a judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.

In this chapter I will explore whether Brennan's work as a jurist reflected his Christianity as opposed to his more confessional commitments as a practising Catholic. To do so I will examine his extra-curial remarks and his judgments while he was a justice of the High Court of Australia. I will advance an argument that Brennan did not regard himself as having a commission to make Christian judgments, only legally orthodox ones. That said, Christian thinking is evident in his judgments on a number of topics.

© The Federation Press

This publication is copyright. Other than for the purposes of and subject to the conditions prescribed under the Copyright Act, no part of it may in any form or by any means ( electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher.