The 2017 Winterton Lecture: Sir Owen Dixon Today

Abstract

In chapter 9 of his book The Constitution and the New Deal, published in 2000, Professor G. Edward White has traced the “canonisation” and “demonization” of Supreme Court Justices with particular reference on the one side to Justices Holmes and Brandeis and on the other side to Justices Van Devanter, McReynolds, Sutherland and Butler (“the Four Housemen of Reaction”). The author convincingly demonstrates the difficulty, after quiet reflection upon their judicial work, in attaching to judges conclusory labels such as “liberal”, “progressive”, “reactionary”; the processes of adjudication are simply too complex to be characterised in such a fashion. Show more