Dyson Heydon
Justice John Dyson Heydon (1943- ) is a Justice of the High Court of Australia; the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy.
Education
Heydon received a BA from Sydney University and a MA and BCL from Oxford University. He was a Rhodes Scholar.
Judicial Activity
Heydon was admitted to the New South Wales Bar in 1973. He was elected Dean of the University of Sydney Law School 1978 – 1979. He was appointed as a Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1987.
At age 30, Heydon became a Professor of law at the University of Sydney, the youngest person to reach that position.
Heydon was appointed as a Judge of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 2000.
He was appointed as a justice of the High Court in February 2003, a position he still holds. Under the Australian Constitution he must retire from the High Court by 2013 when he will be 70.
Heydon is known to be a conservative judge and has spoken out against judicial activism (judges who assume a law making role). His publicly expressed views, made whilst a New South Wales judge, were described by contemporaneous commentators as a "job application" for appointment to the High Court by the conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard. [1] [2]
He is also a great legal scholar, having written Cross on Evidence, the pre-eminent book on the laws of evidence in Australia. He has also taken over his colleague Justice Gummow as one of the editors of Meagher, Gummow, and Lehane's Equity: Doctrines and Remedies.