Who we are

The Robert French Centre of Public Law is based in the UWA Law School. The Centre builds bridges between the Law School, researchers and practitioners, and fosters academic networks both within Australia and internationally.

The Hon Robert French AC

The Centre is inspired by the extraordinary public law contributions of the Hon Robert French AC. The Hon Robert French AC was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia in 2008 – and remained in that role until 2017, after having been a judge of the Federal Court of Australia since 1986. He has also served as the Chair of the Aboriginal Legal Service, President of the National Native Title Tribunal, Deputy President of the Australian Competition Tribunal, part-time member of the Australian Law Reform Commission, President of the Australian Association of Constitutional Law, an International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court, Non-Permanent Justice of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, a Judge of the Court of Appeal of the Dubai International Financial Centre and Chair of the Constitution Education Fund Australia. A UWA graduate with degrees in both science and law he also served as UWA’s Chancellor from 2017 to 2024. It is most fitting that the Robert French Centre of Public Law is named in his honour.

Co-directors

• Assoc/Professor Murray Wesson
• Professor Sarah Murray

Advisory board

• The Hon Robert French AC
• The Hon Janine Pritchard
• Justice Joshua Thomson
• Aurora Milroy
• Adjunct Professor Thomas Poole
• Professor Rosalind Dixon
• Craig Bydder SC

Law School members

 

• Jacinta Dharmananda – Senior Lecturer
• Tamara Tulich – Associate Professor 
• Jessica Kerr - Lecturer
• Renae Barker – Senior Lecturer
• Ian Murray - Professor
• Phoebe Galbally - Lecturer
• Julie Falck - Lecturer
• Elise Bant - Professor
• Simon Young - Adjunct Professor

 

Centre's activities

The Centre provides a bridge between public law scholars in Australia and overseas and the profession while also providing opportunities for our students. It;

1. facilitates research collaborations;
2. supports visiting scholars/collaborators;
3. hosts public law events, seminars and workshops;
4. supports public law training;
5. brings public law research into conversation with interdisciplinary scholarship;
6. provides research opportunities for UWA students and attracts prospective post-graduate students in public law fields; and
7. contributes to public law debates, makes submissions to parliamentary inquiries and provides consulting services.

Our work

1) Digitising the Drafting of the Australian Research Council Linkage, Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities grant funded project that will create a digital archive that consolidates, corrects and enhances the digital record of the drafting of the Commonwealth Constitution. Led by UWA, the grant involves a collaboration between the Quill Project at Pembroke College, University of Oxford and nine Australian universities.

• Quill Project

2) Associate Professor Tamara Tulich was awarded a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award to deliver the first legal history of preventive justice in Australia, detailing the origins, scope and justifications for preventive justice in the Australian settler colonial context

• News article: National research funding awarded to pioneering UWA projects

3) Members of the Centre undertook a consulting project with the Constitution Education Fund Australia to assist in preparation of civics materials on the referendum on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice:

• Civics Australia

Indigenous acknowledgement

 

We acknowledge that the Robert French Centre of Public Law is on Whadjuk-Noongar boodja and that the Wadjuk people of the Nyoongar nation are the traditional owners and the spiritual and cultural custodians of their land. Australian public law’s contribution to silencing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices, legal systems and knowledges makes this particularly important. We pay our respects to their elders past, present and future.