When I was a young woman at 9am every morning I sat to listen to a mathematics lecture near a young man called Robert French. He was very bright but nothing about him foreshadowed the role he plays in Australia today.

Robert French went on to do a second degree a law degree after he had finished his initial science degree. Now he is the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.

The High Court has recently dismissed the so-called Malaysian Solution for processing boat people.

At issue is the process by which Australia is governed the process by which you and I are governed the balance between what our Parliament makes law and how that is interpreted by the courts.

We elect our Parliamentary representatives into the House of Representatives and the Senate in Canberra. Each of us casts our vote and the votes are added together and a formula used to determine who will represent us in Parliament and which party will govern.

They are responsible for making our laws.

However they are only one part of the process by which Australia is governed. Another part is the courts of which the High Court is the elite court. They are meant to apply the laws that Parliament has made. In doing so they take into account the intention of the Parliament as far as it can be understood in making the law.

In recent decades the High Court has developed a reputation for being quite radical and its judgments have created precedents that have a dramatic effect on the Australia we know.

So for example the Mado judgement was a High Court judgment. It radically changed our understanding of land title in Australia and since that judgment huge swathes of Australia have now passed into Native Title.

The recent judgment given by the High Court rejecting the Malaysian solution appears likely to have far-reaching consequences for Australia when it comes to managing our borders.

Robert French and the other Justices on the High Court were not elected by any of us. As vacancies come up they are appointed by the government of the day. There are seven High Court judges.

French was educated at a Catholic school in Perth. While at the University of WA he was President of the University’s Liberal Club. In 1969 at the age of 22 French contested the safe Labor Federal seat of Fremantle for the Liberal Party which he lost to Kim Beazley Sr. He served as President of the Fremantle Branch of the Liberal Party and hence on the State Executive of the Party.

In 1972 French was admitted as a barrister and solicitor in Western Australia.The Hawke government appointed French to the Federal Court in 1986 at the age of 39. On 30 July 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that French would succeed Murray Gleeson as Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. He was sworn in on 1 September 2008.

French has served in numerous bodies including as part-time Commissioner of the Australian Law Reform Commission (2006-08) Additional Judge of the Supreme Court of the ACT (2004-08) a Judge of the Supreme Court of Fiji (2003-08) President of the National Native Title Tribunal (1994-98) Council Member of the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration (1992-08) Chancellor of Edith Cowen University (1991-97) Member of the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia (1986) Chairman of the Town Planning Appeals Tribunal of Western Australia (1986) Associate Member of the Trade Practices Commission (1983-86) member of the Legal Aid Commission of Western Australia (1983-86) a member of the Barrister’s Board of Western Australia (1979-86) and Chairman of the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia (1973-75).

His values on several issues are notable:

On republicanism

French said in a WA Law Society speech in May 2008:

“It is unacceptable in contemporary Australia that the legal head of the Australian state … can never be chosen by the people or their representatives cannot be other than a member of the Anglican Church can never be other than British and can never be an indigenous person.”

Indigenous issues

Justice French is known for working for the rights of Indigenous Australians; in the early 1970s he helped found the WA Aboriginal Legal Service. He was also the first president of the National Native Title Tribunal.

At his swearing in ceremony as Chief Justice French specifically referred to the long history of indigenous Australia noting that:

Recognition of their presence is no mere platitude. The history of Australia’s indigenous people dwarfs in its temporal sweep the history that gave rise to the Constitution under which this court was created.Our awareness and recognition of that history is becoming if it has not already become part of our national identity.

Awards

* Honorary Doctor of Laws Edith Cowan University 1998
* Western Australian Citizen of the Year – Professions 1998
* Centenary Medal 2001 for service as President of the National Native Title Tribunal and as a Federal Court judge
* Companion of the Order of Australia 2010 for eminent service to the law and to the judiciary to legal education and administration in the areas of constitutional competition and native title law and to legal reform.