Pamela Tate

The Hon Pamela Tate KC is an Adjunct Professor of Law, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, and a member of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University.
She retired from the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2021, having been 
appointed as a Judge of the Court of Appeal in 2010. She was the Solicitor-General for 
Victoria from 2003 to 2010, representing the State 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 the Charter of Human Rights 
and Responsibilities. The Charter was enacted in 2006 and she appeared in many of the early 
Charter cases. At the private Bar she specialized in Administrative and Constitutional law. 
She appeared regularly in Constitutional law cases before the High Court and in 
Constitutional and public law cases before the Supreme Court of Victoria. She took Silk in 
2002. Before studying law, she undertook three years of postgraduate study in Philosophy at 
Oxford University on a British Council Commonwealth scholarship under the supervision of 
Professor Michael Dummett. She is a Fellow of Monash University. She is the Patron of the 
Australasian Association of Philosophy and was the Patron of the Women Barristers’ 
Association of the Victorian Bar. In May 2018 she had conferred upon her the degree of 
Doctor of Laws honoris causa of Monash University. In November 2018 she was elected as 
an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She is a Foundation 
Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and in 2021 was elected to the Board of the 
Academy. In 2022 she joined the Board of the Centre for Public Integrity. In 2023 she was 
appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for ‘significant service to the judiciary, 
to the law, and to legal education’.