List of justices of the High Court of Australia explained

The High Court of Australia is composed of seven justices: the chief justice of Australia and six other justices. There have been 57 justices who have served as justices of the High Court since its formation under the Judiciary Act 1903. Under Section 71 of the Australian Constitution, the judicial power of the Commonwealth of Australia is vested in the court, and it has been the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy since the passing of the Australia Act 1986.

In a May 2017 speech, Justice Virginia Bell observed that "few Australians outside the law schools are likely to be able to name the Chief Justice, let alone the puisne justices of the High Court".^[1]

History

Initially, there were three justices of the High Court – Chief Justice Sir Samuel Griffith, Justice Sir Edmund Barton and Justice Richard Edward O'Connor.^[2] The number was expanded in 1906, at the request of the justices, to five, with the appointment of Justices Sir Isaac Isaacs and H. B. Higgins. After O'Connor's death in 1912, an amendment to the Judiciary Act 1903 expanded the bench to seven. For most of 1930, two seats were left vacant due to monetary constraints placed on the court by the Depression. The economic downturn had also led to a reduction in litigation and consequently less work for the court. After Isaacs retired in 1931, his seat was left empty, and in 1933 an amendment to the Judiciary Act officially reduced the number of seats to six. However, this led to some decisions being split three-all. With the appointment of William Webb in 1946, the number of seats returned to seven, and since then the court has had seven justices.^[3] there have been 55 justices, 13 of whom have been chief justice.

Appointments to the court were for life until 1977, when a mandatory retirement age of 70 was established, though several post-1977 justices have retired before reaching the age of 70 (William Deane resigned as a justice to be appointed governor-general).

Composition of the High Court

There have been 57 justices of the High Court; fifty have been men and seven women. The first female justice was Mary Gaudron who was a justice from 1987 to 2003. Susan Crennan was a justice from 2005 to 2015, and Virginia Bell from 2009 to 2021. Susan Kiefel was the first woman to be appointed Chief Justice of Australia. She was appointed in 2017 and had been a justice from 2007 to 2017. Of the seven current justices, four are men, including the chief justice, and three are women. Michelle Gordon was appointed in 2015 and Jacqueline Gleeson in 2021, replacing Bell. Jayne Jagot replaced Justice Keane on the court in 2022, giving women a majority on the High Court for a period of just over a year.

Thirteen politicians, serving or former, have been appointed to the High Court of Australia. Nine justices have served in the Parliament of Australia: Edmund Barton, Richard O'Connor, Isaac Isaacs, H. B. Higgins, Edward McTiernan, H. V. Evatt, John Latham, Garfield Barwick, and Lionel Murphy. All but Evatt were appointed after their parliamentary service; Evatt resigned from the bench in order to pursue his federal political career, although he had previously served in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. In addition to the above, four justices served in colonial parliaments: Samuel Griffith, Charles Powers, Albert Piddington and Adrian Knox, although all concluded their political careers more than 10 years prior to their appointments. The most recent justice to serve in state or federal parliament is Lionel Murphy.

The majority of justices have come from the eastern states, particularly New South Wales (29 justices), Victoria (16 justices) and Queensland Queensland (8 justices). It was not until 1979 that a justice was appointed from Western Australia. There has never been a justice from South Australia. Robert Beech-Jones was born in Tasmania but went to university in Canberra and spent most of his career in Sydney.

Most justices had previously served as judges of other Australian courts prior to their appointment to the High Court. Prior to the creation of the Federal Court of Australia in 1976, this was primarily the Supreme Courts of the States. Since 1976, a number of justices of the Federal Court have been appointed to the High Court. A small number of justices served on both a State Supreme Court and the Federal Court before being appointed to the High Court.

List of justices

The current judges are listed in bold on the table below.

	Image	Name	State	Birth – death	Position	Term began	Term ended	data-sort-type="number"	Time in office	PM at app't	Prev. experience	Notes
1			Qld	1845–1920	Chief justice				Deakin	Chief justice, Sup Ct of Qld
2			NSW	1849–1920	Justice				Deakin	None	Former prime minister Died in office
3			NSW	1851–1912	Justice				Deakin	None	Died in office
4			Vic	1855–1948	Justice				Deakin	None	Resigned to be appointed governor-general
Chief justice								Scullin
5			Vic	1851–1929	Justice				Deakin	None	Died in office
6			Vic	1852–1936	Justice				Fisher	None
Chief justice							Scullin
7			Qld	1853–1939	Justice				Fisher	None
8*			NSW	1862–1945	Justice				Fisher	None	Resigned before sitting
9			NSW	1863–1956	Justice				Fisher	Sup Ct of NSW
10			NSW	1863–1932	Chief justice				Hughes	None
11			Vic	1871–1958	Justice				Hughes	None
12			Vic	1886–1972	Justice				Bruce	None
Chief justice								Menzies
13			NSW	1894–1965	Justice				Scullin	None	Resigned to return to politics
14			NSW	1892–1990	Justice				Scullin	None
15			Vic	1877–1964	Chief justice				Lyons	None
16			NSW	1889–1963	Justice				Menzies	Sup Ct of NSW
17			Qld	1887–1972	Justice				Chifley	Chief justice, Sup Ct of Qld
18			Vic	1892–1961	Justice				Menzies	Sup Ct of Vic	Died in office
19			NSW	1903–1994	Justice				Menzies	None
20			NSW	1901–1969	Justice				Menzies	Sup Ct of NSW	Died in office
21			Vic	1907–1974	Justice				Menzies	None	Died in office
22			NSW	1900–1987	Justice				Menzies	None
23			NSW	1899–1972	Justice				Menzies	Sup Ct of NSW	Died in office
24			NSW	1903–1997	Chief justice				Menzies	None
25			NSW	1909–1973	Justice				Gorton	Sup Ct of NSW NSW Ct of App	Died in office
26			Qld	1917–2005	Justice				Gorton	Fed Ct of BK Sup Ct of Qld
Chief justice								Fraser
27			Vic	1923–2017	Justice				McMahon	Sup Ct of Vic	Resigned to be appointed governor-general
28			NSW	1925–	Justice				McMahon	Sup Ct of NSW NSW Ct of App
Chief justice								Hawke
29			NSW	1917–2015	Justice				Whitlam	Sup Ct of NSW NSW Ct of App
30			NSW	1922–1986	Justice				Whitlam	None	Died in office
31			Vic	1916–1982	Justice				Fraser	None	Died in office
32			WA	1922–2005	Justice				Fraser	None
33			Qld	1928–2022	Justice				Fraser	Fed Ct
Chief justice								Keating
34			NSW	1931–	Justice				Fraser	Fed Ct	Resigned to be appointed governor-general
35			Vic	1933–	Justice				Fraser	None
36			WA	1930–2015	Justice				Hawke	Fed Ct
37			NSW	1943–	Justice				Hawke	None
38			NSW	1935–	Justice				Hawke	Sup Ct of NSW NSW Ct of App
39			NSW	1942–	Justice				Keating	Fed Ct
40			NSW	1939–	Justice				Keating	Sup Ct of NSW Pres, NSW Ct of App
41			Vic	1945–	Justice				Howard	Sup Ct of Vic Vic Ct of App
42			Qld	1937–	Justice		^[4]		Howard	None
43			NSW	1938–	Chief justice		^[5]		Howard	Chief justice, Sup Ct of NSW
44			NSW	1943–	Justice				Howard	Sup Ct of NSW NSW Ct of App
45			Vic	1945–	Justice				Howard	Fed Ct
46			Qld	1954–	Justice				Howard	Sup Ct of Qld Fed Ct
Chief justice								Turnbull
47			WA	1947–	Chief justice				Rudd	Fed Ct
48			NSW	1951–	Justice	^[6]			Rudd	Sup Ct of NSW NSW Ct of App
49			NSW	1958–	Justice	^[7]	Incumbent		Gillard	None
Chief justice						Incumbent		Albanese
50			Qld	1952–	Justice		^[8]		Gillard	Sup Ct of Qld Fed Ct
51			Vic	1950–	Justice				Abbott	Sup Ct of Vic
52			Vic	1964–	Justice		Incumbent		Abbott	Fed Ct
53			WA	1974–	Justice		Incumbent		Turnbull	Fed Ct Sup Ct of WA
54			Vic	1969–	Justice		Incumbent		Morrison	Fed Ct
55			NSW	1966–	Justice		Incumbent		Morrison	Fed Ct
56			NSW	1964/65–	Justice		Incumbent		Albanese	Fed Ct NSW LEC
57			NSW	c.1964	Justice		Incumbent		Albanese	Sup Ct of NSW

Seats of the High Court

This following chart illustrates the composition of the High Court. It indicates the seven seats of the court, and who has occupied each seat at different points in the court's existence. The red portions represent the future part of a judge's term and show the date at which they are bound to retire from the court (although they may choose to retire before that date). The blue portions of a judge's term show a period in which that judge was chief justice.

See also

• High Court of Australia
• List of law schools attended by Australian High Court justices
• List of chief justices of Australia by time in office
• List of jurists

Notes and References

1. News: Examining the Judge: Launch of Issue 40(2) UNSW Law Journal. 29 May 2017. High Court of Australia. Virginia. Bell. 30 May 2020.
2. Web site: History of the High Court . High Court . 26 October 2016.
3. Book: The High Court, the Constitution and Australian Politics . Cambridge University Press . 2015 . 9781107043664 . Dixon, R . Williams, G . George Williams (lawyer) . 14 September 2020 . 5 February 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210205135206/https://books.google.com/books?id=KqewBgAAQBAJ . live . 78-80, 118-119, 141-143, 160,161.
4. http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/31/2020115.htm?section=australia "Callinan retires from High Court"
5. Web site: ABC News . Chief Justice honoured at retirement ceremony . 29 August 2008 . 30 August 2008.
6. Web site: . Michael Kirby leaves High Court bench with 'faith' in law intact . 2 February 2009 . 2 February 2009.
7. Web site: Solicitor-General Gagelar appointed to High Court . ABC News . 21 August 2012 . 21 August 2012.
8. News: Pelly . Michael . Keane laments exit after 'wonderful' innings on High Court . 17 October 2022 . Australian Financial Review . Nine Entertainment Company . 13 October 2022.