Book Review: The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia
| Published date | 01 March 2003 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0067205X0303100108 |
| Date | 01 March 2003 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
BOOK REVIEW
The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia, Tony Blackshield, Michael
Coper and George Williams (eds), Oxford University Press, 2001
Andrew Le Sueur*
By now there will be few people in Australia who are not familiar with t his book or at
least aware of its existence. At its official launch in February 2002, Chief Justice
Gleeson said, '[t]here is a need for a wider and deeper understanding of this institution
and the part it plays in the life of the nation. This publication will make a major
contribution to such understanding'. 1 Since then it has become the stuff of newspaper
columns and university law school reading lists. The scale of the work is impressive:
over 200 hundred experts contributed 435 entries, marshalled together in the space of
six years by the three editors and their research assistants (generously acknowledged
on the title page). The book is beautifully produced. Every entry is supplemented by
well-chosen suggestions for further rea ding. This book—along with The Oxford
Companion to the Supreme Court of t he United States2—excites a little envy in the reform-
minded British reader: not only do we have n o Oxford Companion but no t op-level
court separate from Parliament and the executive in ways recognisable in other
modern democracies.
The Oxford Companion to the High Court project prompts several questions from an
outsider, eager to use the book for comparative research. First, what is the rationale for
telling the 'High Court's story, from A to Z' (p vii)? This, of course, is the format of the
celebrated Oxford Companions series, and the obvious choice for a reference book, but
an account of an institution and its role in national life is norma lly understood to be a
narrative of events, trends, and the influence of personalities on them. The alphabetical
presentation does not do a great deal to aid understanding (at least for an overseas
reader not intimately knowledgeable of the High Court). Use of the subject index
assists (though a simple table of contents would also have been helpful), as doe s the
effective system of cross-referencing used in all entries—but one may wonder whether
a more conventional narrative might not be a more satisfactory medium for telling a
story.
What the A to Z format does achieve, however, is to make the book a pleasure to
read. (Enjoyment is surely one of the mo st under-rated goals of books about law and
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* The University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.
1 Murray Gleeson, ‘The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia’ (Speech
delivered at the official launch, Canberra, 13 February 2002) <http://www. www.hcourt.
gov.au/speeches/cj/cj_ox ford.htm> at 12 March 2003.
2 Kermit L Hall et al (eds), The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States
(1992).
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