Feminist Judgment Projects: Australia

The Australian Feminist Judgments Project drew its inspiration from the feminist judgment-writing projects in Canada and the UK. Under the leadership of four female academic lawyers, the project brings together 25 rewritten judgments across a range of cases grouped under four themes: public law, private law, crime and evidence and interpreting equality (family law, discrimination law and treaty law). Each judgment is also accompanied by commentary from an academic in that field of law, explaining the context, reasoning and implications of the decision. The judgments are published in Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter (eds), Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law (Hart Publishing, 2014).

Available Extracts:

• Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter, ‘Introduction: Righting Australian Law’ in Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter, Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law

• Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter, ‘Reflections on Rewriting the Law’

• Julie Stubbs, ‘A Well-founded Fear? Giving Context to Self-Defence in Taikato v R’ (pre-published version of chapter)

Reviews:

• Heather Roberts (2015) 35(3) Legal Studies 558

• Julie McCandless (2015) 54 The Irish Jurist 180

• Natalie Kynsewood (2016) 24 Feminist Legal Studies 111

• Betheli O’Carroll (2015) 24(2) Griffith Law Review 341

• Magistrate Jennifer Giles (2015) 6 Workplace Review

• Diane White, ‘“This is a New Frontier”: The Global Movement Working to Make Courts Feminist’ Broadly (online), 1 December 2016

• Ann O’Connell, ‘Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Re-Writing Law: Book Review’ on Melbourne Law School, Opinions on High (17 February 2015)

• Greg Reinhardt (2015) 24 Journal of Judicial Administration

• Judge Sarah Bradley, ‘Address’ (Speech delivered at the to the Queensland Justices Association on International Women’s Day, Brisbance, 8 March 2015)

• Caroline Jones (2015) Portia: Law Arts – Books 60

Commentary/Other Resources:

• Heather Roberts and Laura Sweeney, ‘Why (Re)Write Judgments?: Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law’ (2015) 37(3) Sydney Law Review 457

• Kate Fitz-Gibbon, JaneMaree Maher, ‘Feminist Challenges to the Constraints of Law: Donning Uncomfortable Robes?’ (2015) 23 Feminist Legal Studies 253

• Rosemary Hunter on the Scarlet Letter

• Rosemary Hunter, Episode 12: Rosemary Hunter, The Scarlet Letter, (15 April 2018)

• Rosemary Hunter, ‘Seminar: Feminist Judgment Projects’, Podcast on Feminist Legal Studies Group at Monash University, The Scarlet Letter, part one (15 November 2017); part two (15 December 2017).

• President Margaret McMurdo, ‘Address’ (Speech delivered at the Launch of the Book ‘Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law’, Queensland Supreme Court Brisbane, 2 December 2014)

• On this page, lecturers in Australia outline how they used the book in various legal courses.

• Kylie Weston-Scheuber, ‘Sentencing Judgment: R v Ramage [2004] VSC 508’ (Extract from PhD thesis, Australian National University)

• Interview with Trish Luker, (UTS YouTube, 29 July 2014)

• Prianka Thomas, ‘Australian Feminist Judgments Project with Dr Francesca Bartlett’ on University of Queensland, Justice and Law Society (1 August 2016)

• Rosemary Hunter, ‘Feminist Judging in the “Real World”’ (2018) Onati Socio-Legal Series

• Heather Douglas and Francesca Bartlett, ‘Practice and Persuasion: Women, Feminism and Judicial Diversity’ in Rebecca Ananian-Welsh and Jonathan Crowe (eds), Judicial Independence in Australia: Contemporary Challenges, Future Directions (Federation Press, the, Sydney 2016) 76