GLSA Global Thinking Lecture Series – The Honourable Justice Dyson Heydon AC

​Volume 2, Issue 4 (Originally Published 13 August 2012)
 
In his first address to Melbourne students, Justice Dyson Heydon of the High Court will speak at lunchtime on 21 August in G 08 on the subject ‘Are Bills of Rights Necessary in Common Law Systems?’
 
Justice Heydon was appointed to the High Court in 2003, after three years on the bench of the Supreme Court of NSW. Before that, he was an Equity barrister, taking silk in 1987 after only seven years at the Bar. He was Counsel in many leading cases, including Hospital Products and the Super League case.  Justice Heydon is the author of many books, with a focus on Company Law, Evidence, Equity and Trusts; his personal library features more than 20,000 volumes and betrays his other passion, military history.
 
Master of Arts degrees at the University of Sydney, and a Rhodes Scholarship to study law at Oxford University, where he read for the Bachelor of Common Law and subsequently became a Fellow and Tutor in law at Oxford. He was a professor of law at the University of Sydney Law School from 1973 to 1981 – the youngest ever professor of law in the English speaking world. From 1978 to 1979 he was the Dean at the Faculty of Law and head of the Department of Law at the University.
 
Dyson Heydon completed his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees at the University of Sydney, and a Rhodes Scholarship to study law at Oxford University, where he read for the Bachelor of Common Law and subsequently became a Fellow and Tutor in law at Oxford. He was a professor of law at the University of Sydney Law School from 1973 to 1981 - the youngest ever professor of law in the English speaking world. From 1978 to 1979 he was the Dean at the Faculty of Law and head of the Department of Law at the University.
 
Justice Heydon is known to many students for his dissent in last spring’s M 70 case. His prose style is characterised by lucidity and vividness. Now, for the first time, Melbourne students have the opportunity to hear him speak in person.