Pamela Tate

The Honourable Justice Pamela Tate was appointed as a judge of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia, in 2010.  She was the Solicitor-General for Victoria from 2003 to 2010, representing the State of Victoria in constitutional challenges in the High Court of Australia.  She was the first woman to be appointed Solicitor-General for Victoria. While Solicitor-General she was appointed Special Counsel to the Human Rights Consultation Committee that recommended the enactment of Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.  Victoria was the first State in Australia to have a statutory human rights instrument.  The Charter was enacted in 2006 and she appeared in many of the early Charter cases.  In June 2007 she was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics.  As a judge, Justice Tate has since heard and determined many appeals involving the Charter.

Before being appointed as Solicitor-General, Justice Tate specialized in constitutional and administrative law at the private Bar and took Silk in 2002.   She appeared regularly in constitutional law cases before the High Court and in constitutional and public law cases before the Supreme Court of Victoria.  Before studying law, she undertook three years of postgraduate study in Philosophy at Oxford University under the supervision of Professor Michael Dummett. 

Justice Tate is a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.  She is a Fellow of Monash University.  She is the Patron of the Australasian Association of Philosophy and the Patron of the Women Barristers’ Association of the Victorian Bar.  In May 2018 Monash University conferred upon her the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa.  In November 2018 she was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

While in residence at the Bonavero Institute, Justice Tate will carry out comparative research on the means of enforcing obligations against public authorities under various human rights instruments and the range of remedies available.