The Callinan Scholarship

This biography has been prepared by UQLA Director Christian Jennings KC.

The Honourable Ian D. F. Callinan A.C. is a legend of the national bar, former High Court judge, former commissioner, novelist, playwright, patron of the arts, and keen sportsman. Softly spoken, at the Bar he was known to have a mastery of his brief, as one of the nation’s best cross-examiners, and as being seductive in persuasive argument. As a judge, he was known for his intellectual rigour and work ethic, his mammoth dissenting judgments, and his views on the proper respective roles of parliament and the High Court.

Callinan was raised in the Eastern Suburbs of Brisbane, not far from the Gabba Stadium where he spent much time enjoying either playing or watching the cricket. After his secondary education, he worked as a clerk in the Immigration Department before obtaining articles of clerkship with a Brisbane law firm. He studied part-time at the University of Queensland for five years and was conferred a Bachelor of Laws in 1960. He was then the first in his family to complete tertiary education.

Callinan would have read for an Arts degree before taking his Law degree but circumstances required that he become self-supporting. Fortunately, his Law degree required that he study English, Political Science, a foreign language, and (as his Arts subject elective) Philosophy. These non-law subjects opened his eyes to the immensity of what he did not know and, as he has since demonstrated, a thirst to pursue a variety of interests.

In 1960, Callinan qualified as a solicitor and later, in 1965, was called to the Bar. He took silk in 1978. Whilst his practice was principally in civil litigation — for which he was in constant demand to appear in cases throughout Australia concerning, inter alia, defamation, trade practices, insurance, constitutional matters, and stamp duty — he was briefed in some of Australia’s most high-profile criminal cases, including by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions in its case against Lionel Murphy, then a Justice of the High Court of Australia, and in extradition proceedings against Christopher Skase. In an article published in the Australian Financial Review in 2007, he was described as “one of the last true giants of the bar nationally”.

At the Bar, Callinan held many offices within the profession, including that of President of the Bar Association of Queensland and President of the Australian Bar Association. He is now an Honorary Life Member of each of those Associations and of the New South Wales Bar Association.

Callinan served as Chairman of the Queensland Art Gallery, Queensland TAB, Brisbane Community Arts Centre, Brisbane Civic Art Gallery, Australian Defence Force Academy, and the Griffith University Innocence Project. He was a director of Queensland Coal Resources Ltd from 1989 to 1997, Santos Ltd from 1996 to 1997, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from 1996 to 1997. He also lectured in legal ethics at the University of Queensland.

In a ceremony to mark the Centenary of the Bar Association of Queensland, Callinan observed that a barrister appointed to the Bench brings with him or her an ability — brought about through their training, application, specialisation, and forensic experience — to recognise intuitively that a point is a good one or a bad one, that a piece of evidence is admissible or is inadmissible, and that an argument may be much more concisely presented.

And so it was when Callinan was appointed to the High Court of Australia in February 1998. He was then the first appointment from the private Bar since 1976. His judgments, and thereby the Court, were enriched by his wide interests, experience as preeminent silk, and mastery of the English language. He retired from the Court in August 2007.

Thereafter, Callinan has remained active and in high demand. He has been appointed an ad hoc Judge of the International Court of Justice, to conduct numerous inquiries and reviews, and continues to offer his services as an expert, mediator and arbitrator.

In 1997, he was appointed to conduct a Commission of Inquiry into the outbreak of Equine Influenza in Australia and, in 2012, was appointed to conduct a review of the Crime and Misconduct Act 2001 (Qld). In 2013, he was appointed to review the Victorian Parole System and, in 2015, was appointed by the New Zealand government to review claims by David Bain for compensation for wrongful conviction and imprisonment. In 2016, he was appointed to review liquor laws of New South Wales and, in 2018, was appointed to review the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

On legal education, Callinan has expressed his regret that it is no longer necessary to study non-law subjects, particularly a subject on the English language, to qualify for a law degree. He has argued that in the following three respects the study of English is indispensable to those practising law: first, reading the best writers painlessly educates in the best ways to write; secondly, wide reading, including of fiction, informs the reader of facts that could not otherwise be known; and thirdly, the best authors give the reader insight into human behaviour, affairs and frailties, to develop emotional intelligence. Delivering the Archbishop Sir James Duhig Memorial Lecture in 2014, Callinan remarked that “Literature is not just an assemblage of words and stories. It is a gateway to the world of ideas and other places”.

He is the author of many plays and novels, of which some more notable are The Lawyer and the Libertine (1996) and The Coroner’s Conscience (1999).

In 2003, Callinan was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia for his services to the judiciary and the practice of law, to the arts, and to the community. In 2010, in recognition of his service to the law and the arts, the University of Queensland awarded him a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa).