Rule of Law:
Robin Speed Memorial Lecture
Speaker: The Hon Walter Sofronoff KC on The Rule of Law in Australia
Mr Sofronoff KC was Solicitor-General of Queensland, and the President of the Queensland Court of Appeal and recently headed the Board of Enquiry into the Criminal Justice System in the ACT following the R v Lehrmann (Brittany Higgins) case.
Mr Sofronoff KC is a very strong supporter of the rule of law. His father was a Cossack from Siberia who fled Russia in the 1930s. When he was sworn in as a President in 2017, he said in reference to his father
“My father and my mother knew and understood there was something that they would gain for themselves and their son, by coming here .. He would say there was order here. He had experienced order under tyranny – the kind you achieve by obedience. But what he wanted as a refugee, and what he found here, was order of a different kind. Of course, by order, he really meant the rule of law..
It’s an unshakeable willingness on the part of all of us to conform to these fundamentals, it is our inner convictions that cannot be shaken, which have resulted in Australia’s stable constitutional democracy.”
Date and Time: Thursday 13 June at 6:00pm
Location: BETA, 238 Castlereagh Street, Sydney
Cost: $200
This event is proudly sponsored by Speed and Stracey Lawyers
This lecture is named in honour of the founder of Speed and Stracey Lawyers and the Rule of Law Education Centre, Robin Speed OAM, who passed away in February 2023.
The Robin Speed Memorial Lecture is held annually to coincide with the anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta on 15 June.
The purpose of this Lecture will be to provide an inspirational reminder of the contribution made by Robin Speed in promoting and protecting the rule of law in Australia. On establishing the Rule of Law Institute in 2010, Robin hoped “to encourage fellow Australians to stand up and challenge rule of law abuses. This can be done in all sorts of ways, small or large, like making submissions to the government, writing articles, speaking out publicly, attending conferences and working with the Rule of Law Association. The job cannot be left to the courts, where they have limited powers of intervention and any intervention may be too late.”
