Australia now has its first female chief justice of the High Court of Australia after Susan Kiefel was sworn in yesterday.
The occasion was marked by a ceremony in which Australian Attorney-General George Brandis described her life as a “truly great Australian story,” one to “inspire women and men alike.”
Kiefel said that it had taken more than 80 years from when women were able to vote in 1902, and when the High Court was established in 1903, for the first female justice of the High Court, Mary Gaudron, to be appointed in 1987.
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Kiefel was appointed to the court in 2007 after serving on the federal court since 1994.
Kiefel noted the composition of the High Court had changed — it now has three female justices, including justices Virginia Bell and Michelle Gordon.
“The appointment of more women to this court recognizes that there are now women who have the necessary legal ability and experience as well as the personal qualities to be a justice of this court,” she said.
Kiefel, who was appointed to succeed Robert French in November last year, began her career as a legal secretary after leaving school at 15.
Brandis said that this may seem “an unpromising start for a future chief justice,” but praised her “steely determination” as she completed secondary school at night.
Brandis said that, when Kiefel was called to the bar in 1975, at the age of 21, it was a “characteristically brave move” because there were “hardly any women in practice at the bar in Brisbane.”
Kiefel’s appointment caps a career of firsts: She was the first woman in Queensland to be appointed Queen’s Counsel, in 1987, and the first to serve on the Supreme Court of Queensland, in 1993.
Brandis acknowledged that Kiefel had been “the first woman to occupy a particular office” at several points in her career.
“But your success has had nothing to do with your gender and everything to do with your intelligence, diligence and skill,” he said.
Kiefel spoke about the importance of the court’s role upholding the constitution and its responsibility to respectfully declare when legislative or executive power had been exceeded.
She said wryly that she would bask in the praise she had received at the ceremony because it “could in the future be replaced by criticism from other quarters.”
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