February 19, 2025 @ 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM
Speaker: The Honourable Stephen John Gageler AC, Chief Justice of Australia
About the lecture
The form of popular sovereignty empowered by the Australian Constitution was framed to be government by “the people” in constitutive and routine manifestations, both sustaining and sustained by the system of government it called into existence. It was framed to be dynamic, the design of the electoral system according to which the people would act in those distinct manifestations having been entrusted to development by ordinary law made by the Commonwealth Parliament. And it can be seen to have evolved: through the development of a broad franchise to be exercised by the people today in fact comprising the large portion of the community entitled to vote at federal elections and at constitutional referenda; and through the establishment of a system of compulsory voting by which the people today in fact exercise that broad franchise. The form of popular sovereignty empowered by the Australian Constitution can accordingly be seen today to be government by “the people” writ large. Chief Justice Gageler traces this evolution as a process by which ordinary law has built out the constitutional structure empowering popular sovereignty.
About the speaker
Stephen Gageler AC was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia on 6 November 2023, having served as a justice of the High Court from 2012. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 2000 and Solicitor-General of Australia in 2008. In 2017, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia. His Honour is a graduate of the Australian National University and Harvard University.
George Winterton Memorial Fund
The George Winterton Memorial Lecture was established to commemorate the outstanding and lasting contribution of Professor George Winterton to constitutional law scholarship and our understanding of constitutional law. It is funded through the George Winterton Memorial Fund. The Fund exists to support advancing constitutional law at Sydney Law School through teaching, research, and community engagement in memory of Professor Winterton.
For those interested in making a gift to the George Winterton Memorial Fund, please contact Dr Joel Harrison, Convenor of the Fund and Winterton Lecture series (joel.harrison@sydney.edu.au). Your gift will be gratefully used for sustaining the Winterton Memorial lecture series, supporting a PhD and research scholarship fund, and developing new research in constitutional law.
Wednesday 19 February 2025
Time: 5.30-6.45pm (Registration from 5pm, cocktail reception to follow)
Venue: Banco Court, Supreme Court of NSW (184 Phillip Street, Sydney)
This lecture is proudly hosted by The University of Sydney Law School and The University of Western Australia Law School.