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The Chief Justice, Mr Justice Murray, Baroness
Hale, Ms Justice McGuinness and the former Chief Justice, Ronan Keane.
The eleventh John Maurice Kelly Memorial Lecture was delivered by Baroness
Brenda Hale on Friday 21 January 2005 before a distinguished audience which included the
Minister for Justice, Mr Michael McDowell; the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray; and Justices Nial
Fennelly, Adrian Hardiman, Hugh Geoghegan and Catherine McGuinness of the Supreme Court.
The title of Baroness Hale's lecture was 'Law Maker or Law Reformer - what is a Law Lady for?' The lecture considered the role of Judges in the
context of interpreting, making and reforming the law and considered what distinct perspective, if any, a female judge could bring to judicial
decision-making.
Baroness Hale has the distinction of becoming the first woman to be appointed to the United Kingdom's highest court, the House of Lords. She
was appointed 'Lord of Appeal in Ordinary' in 2004 after a varied career as an academic lawyer, law reformer and judge. Baroness Hale is the fourth
member of the House of Lords to deliver the John Maurice Kelly Memorial Lecture (the others were Lord Alan Rodger; Lord Leonard Hoffman, and Lord Johann Steyn).
The Dean of the Faculty of Law, Professor Paul O'Connor, stated in his introductory remarks that the lecture series was, "a particularly fitting
memorial to John Maurice Kelly, former Professor of Roman Law and
Jurisprudence at UCD, who contributed so much to the development of the Faculty of Law, to legal scholarship in Ireland and further afield, and as a
public servant and parliamentarian to the political culture of the Irish State".
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