Australian Academy of Law Lecture

The Australian Academy of Law¹  will be presenting a lecture by world-renowned expert, Professor Lucia Zedner FBA on 29 July 2014 on the topic “Preventative Justice and the Rule of Law: What Role for the Legal Profession and the Courts, What Role for Academia?”

Professor Zedner is Law Fellow at Corpus Christi College and Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Oxford and Conjoint Professor, Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales.

The flyer for the lecture explains:

Preventing crime is, as Blackstone observed, preferable to punishing crime. Yet many preventive measures are no less intrusive, no less liberty-restricting, than many punishments. It is odd, therefore, that the justification of coercive preventive measures has attracted far less scholarly endeavour than has punishment. If the pursuit of public protection is not to operate in a jurisprudential black hole, closer attention is needed to the grounds for, nature and extent of preventive measures and the procedural protections that should apply. This lecture examines recent cases and debates to explore the role of lawyers, judges and academics in distinguishing and delimiting preventive measures. It concludes by suggesting principles and values that might form the foundations of ‘preventive justice’ in accordance with the rule of law and fundamental rights.

Among her other distinguished achievements, Professor Zedner, together with Professor Andrew Ashworth, recently published a work titled “Preventive Justice” (Oxford University Press), following a three-year study at the University of Oxford seeking to develop an account of the principles and values that should guide and limit the state’s use of preventive techniques that involve coercion against the individual.

The lecture will be chaired by Justice Margaret McMurdo, President of the Court of Appeal. It is to be held at 5:15 for 5:30pm on 29 July 2014 at the Banco Court.

The Bar Association is supporting the lecture, together with a seminar by Professor Zedner’s husband, Professor Joshua Getzler, Professor of Law and Legal History, University of Oxford, on the topic “Ascribing and Limiting Fiduciary Obligations: Understanding the Operation of Consent”.

Professor Getzer’s seminar will be on held 30 July 5pm to 6pm in the Gibbs Room, Bar Association of Queensland.

Further details may be obtained from Helene Breene at the Bar Association (helene@qldbar.asn.au).

Footnote

1. The Australian Academy of Law (www.academyoflaw.org.au) is a broadly-based body comprising individuals of exceptional distinction in the discipline of law who are committed to the advancement of that discipline and to justice according to law in Australia. A distinctive feature of the Academy is that its Fellows, and therefore the Academy itself, provide a “bridge” that links, indeed unites, the judiciary, academia and the practising profession through shared values and objectives.