Another feather in Kirby cap

ONE of Australia’s most honoured jurists, Michael Kirby, has been awarded a Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Tasmania.

The retired High Court justice, who was awarded the honour as UTAS’s graduation series continued yesterday, used the occasion to reveal his “Ten Commandments” for those wanting to follow in his footsteps.

Mr Kirby, who recently was chairman of the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was awarded the degree for his consistent work at the university, where he has been an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Law since his retirement from the High Court in 2009.

In front of Tasmania’s next generations of legal minds, Mr Kirby AC, CMG, outlined his “Ten Commandments” that they should take away from the ceremony.

“Like the tablets handed to Moses, and unlike the lengthy opinions of the High Court, there is no time for elaboration,” he said.

“The commandments must just be said, in the hope that they will be obeyed, with the sure knowledge that they will probably not always or fully be respected.”

They are as follows: embrace new technology; get ready for great social changes; be ready for disappointments; be aware of the defects of your discipline; be more generous in volunteering; remember family, friends and fellow graduates; love yourself a bit more but not in the sense of vanity; remember your university and teachers; everybody should be supported in the search for love; and be ready to dissent from received wisdom.

On the ninth point Mr Kirby, who was Australia’s first openly gay judge, said the recent plebiscite for marriage equality, and it subsequently being passed into law was an example of people supporting the quest for love.

“It was a great national act of kindness, upholding the dignity and equality of all.”