Ian Callinan Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

In March 2015, the New Zealand Government chose Callinan to review once again David Bain’s claims for compensation for wrongful conviction and imprisonment after rejecting an earlier report by Canadian judge Ian Binnie. On 26 January 2016, Callinan’s report was delivered to New Zealand Justice Minister Amy Adams and on 2 August 2016, Adams formally announced that his finding was that Bain did not meet the threshold of “innocent on the balance of probabilities”.

In 2016, Callinan was appointed by the Deputy Premier of New South Wales Troy Grant MP to conduct a review of the effectiveness of the Sydney lockout laws, which restrict the sale of alcohol and the admission of patrons to some alcohol-serving venues. Callinan’s review was submitted to the Government on 13 September. As of October 2016, the recommendations were yet to be taken up by State Government.

In July 2014 he was appointed Chairman of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Independent Review Panel for its Open Advice Review Program (OARP). The OARP was established by the Commonwealth Bank following a Senate Economics References Committee Inquiry into ASIC’s performance. The other Panel members are the Hon. Julie Dodds-Streeton and the Hon. Geoffrey Davies AO.

On 20 January 2014 Callinan became an ad hoc Judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for the proceeding Timor-Leste v Australia (The Case Concerning Questions relating to the Seizure and Detention of Certain Documents and Data), after being nominated by the Commonwealth of Australia. On the same day the ICJ commenced hearing a request by Timor-Leste for provisional measures of protection. On 3 March 2014, Callinan delivered a dissenting judgment on Timor-Leste’s application for provisional measures.

On 20 August 2013, Callinan released a report commissioned by the Victorian Minister for Corrections and Minister for Crime Prevention, Edward O’Donohue, on the state of the parole system in Victoria. The report stated that the parole board frequently put the rights of prisoners ahead of community safety when issuing parole. As an example, Callinan used the Jill Meagher case, in which Adrian Bayley raped and murdered Meagher, to highlight the flaws within the system, stating that “the Parole Board had both cause and opportunity to cancel Bayley’s parole” prior to the incident.

On 11 October 2012, he was appointed by the Queensland Attorney-General to conduct a review of the Crime and Misconduct Commission.

Born in Casino, New South Wales, Callinan was raised in Brisbane, Queensland, and educated at Brisbane Grammar School. He received a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Queensland while working as an articled clerk. On 23 July 2010, the University of Queensland awarded him a Doctorate of Laws (honoris causa) in recognition of his service to the law and the arts. In 2012, James Cook University awarded Callinan an Honorary Doctorate in Laws (honoris causa) in recognition of his service to the law.

Callinan’s broader legal philosophy was considered by Professor Michael Bryant in a 2008 article published in the University of Queensland Law Journal. Bryant concluded that in his judgments on private law, Callinan ‘showed a strong preference for achieving corrective justice, and a corresponding reluctance to take into account arguments based on considerations of distributive justice … based on clearly held and expressed views on the proper limits of the appellate judicial role’.

Immediately upon his retirement from the High Court, Callinan was called back into public service through his appointment to conduct a Commission of Inquiry into the outbreak of equine influenza in Australia. His report was handed down in April 2008 and on 12 June 2008 the Commonwealth Government responded to the report, accepting all 38 of its recommendations and putting in place an implementation program.

Callinan was appointed as a Justice of the High Court in February 1998. He remained a Justice of the High Court until 1 September 2007, when he was compelled to retire under the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1901 (Cth) s 72 provision which requires all Federal judges to retire upon attaining the age of 70. He was replaced by fellow Queenslander Susan Kiefel.

He set out his own views on how the law should respond to ‘rights of privacy’ in an article published in the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal in 2007 entitled “Privacy, Confidence, Celebrity and Spectacle”, in which he called for the development of a tort of privacy and indicated a preference for tortious protection of privacy and image rather than the expansion of the equitable doctrine of breach of confidence.

While on the High Court he spoke out against the death penalty (which has been abolished in Australia), most notably in a speech to the 2005 Law Asia conference.

Callinan was described by Justice Susan Kenny of the Federal Court of Australia in article published in 2003 as ‘the leading’ exponent of the ‘prudential ethical’ method of constitutional adjudication during the 2002 term. Justice Kenny defined the ‘prudential ethical mode’ as ‘a constitutional argument that relies on economic, social or political considerations attending the case … a self-consciously evaluative style’.

In 2003, Justice Callinan was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for his services to the law, arts and the community. He received the Centenary Medal in 2001 for his service as a Justice of the High Court of Australia. Justice Callinan is also a life member of the Queensland Bar Association and of the Australian Bar Association and an honorary Fellow of the Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators in Australia.

He served on the board of several public companies before being appointed to the bench and was also a board member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Between 2000 and 2008 he was the Chairman of the Australian Defence Force Academy, Australia’s higher education institution for defence force personnel.

Consistent with his restrained approach to constitutional interpretation and preference for democratic participation in constitutional alteration, Callinan expressed dissatisfaction with the High Court’s implied rights jurisprudence and, in particular, the Court’s decision in Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [1997] HCA 25, which confirmed an implied constitutional right to political communication. In Coleman v Power Callinan cast doubt on the constitutional foundation for the Lange implication, but did not need to decide whether it was correct in order to decide the case.

Callinan was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland in 1960 and a barrister in 1965. He was appointed as a Queen’s Counsel (QC) in 1978. He was President of the Queensland Bar Association between 1984 and 1987 and President of the Australian Bar Association between 1984 and 1985.

Ian David Francis Callinan AC KC (born 1 September 1937) is a former Justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy.