Dr. Ian Freckelton presents keynote address on Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity/Mental Impairment: Decision Making about Release at the 2014 International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services.
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IAFMHS Keynote Address
About Dr. Ian Freckelton
Dr Ian Freckelton is a barrister in full-time practice throughout Australia, working as a Queen’s Counsel from Crockett Chambers in Melbourne. He is a member of the Victorian, Northern Territory and Tasmanian Bar Associations and took silk in 2007. He has a mixed trial, appellate and advisory practice in administrative law, disciplinary law, personal injury law, criminal law and commercial law. He has also appeared in judicial inquiries/Royal Commissions. In over two and a half decades at the Bar, Dr Freckelton has appeared in many leading cases across a wide range of legal areas in all States and Territories in Australia. He has also undertaken advisory work for cases in New Zealand and Singapore.
Dr Freckelton has also been appointed to a number of tribunals on a part-time basis, including the Social Security Appeals Tribunal and Victoria’s Mental Health Tribunal (formerly the Mental Health Review Board), Psychosurgery Review Board, Medical Practitioners Board, Psychologists Registration Board, Disciplinary Appeals Board, Investigation Review Panel, Suitability Panel, and the Northern Suburbs Football Disciplinary Tribunal. He has fulfilled functions on a pro tem basis for Tasmania’s Psychologists Registration Tribunal and in the university disciplinary context.
Dr Freckelton is also a part-time Professorial Fellow in Law and Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne, an Adjunct Professor of Law and Forensic Medicine at Monash University, an Adjunct Professor of Law at La Trobe University in Melbourne and an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. He fulfils such functions after court hours. He was a Deputy Director of Monash University’s Centre for the Advancement of Law and Mental Health (CALMH) and Vice-President of Monash’s International Institute of Forensic Studies (IIFS).
Dr Freckelton has held honorary or adjunct positions as a Professor of Law at Sydney, Macquarie, and La Trobe Universities. Between 2008 and 2013 he was a Professor of Law, Forensic Medicine and Forensic Psychology at Monash University. He has also held visiting positions at the University of Melbourne in the Criminology Department and also at Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand, and the University of Iceland. He has received a variety of ARC grants, as well as awards in relation to his research.
Dr Freckelton is an inaugural member of Victoria’s Coronial Council and is a member of the Netherlands Centre of Forensic Expertise and Bond University’s Centre for Law, Government and Public Policy. He is the Vice-President of the Australasian Chapter of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health. He was a Board member of La Trobe University’s Centre of Public Health Law and Bond University’s Centre for Forensic Excellence. He is a former transnational President (1991-1997) and Victorian President (2006-2009) of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law and one of its two honorary life members. On two occasions he was Vice-President of Victoria’s Council for Civil Liberties. He has been the Chief Examiner for the Law Institute of Victoria‘s assessment for specialisation of criminal law solicitors since 2007. He was the representative of the Criminal Bar Association of Victoria to the Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences. He is currently a member of the advisory board to Flinders University’s Centre for Crime, Policy and Research and of a working group of the McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer of the Cancer Council Victoria.
Dr Freckelton is the founding Editor of the Journal of Law and Medicine (1993- ) (Thomson Reuters) and the founding Editor-in-Chief of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (1994- ) (Taylor & Francis). He is member of the editorial boards for the New Zealand Journal of Family Law; the British Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies; Ethics, Medicine and Public Health; the Deakin Law Review and the Australasian Journal of Forensic Sciences. He is the author of over 500 peer reviewed articles and chapters of books, and the author and editor of over three dozen books on evidence law, health law, compensation law, coronial law, disciplinary law, causation, therapeutic jurisprudence, criminal law, sentencing, policing, and scholarly misconduct. He has also co-edited a volume of essays about the former High Court judge, Michael Kirby, Appealing to the Future (Thomson/Reuters). His most recent book is Scholarly Misconduct and the Law (forthcoming, Oxford University Press, 2015/16).
Dr Freckelton has held many appointments as a consultant. He was a member of the Expert Advisory Panel for Mental Health Act Reform in Victoria, a consultant to the Victorian Law Reform Commission on its references on Guardianship and Administration, Bail, and Sexual Offences and Mental Impairment. He was also an invited consultant to the Victorian Office of Police Integrity in its work of Deaths Associated with Police Contact, and Chair of the Inter-Professional Advisory Team for the Australian Institute of Radiography which assessed the feasibility of advanced practice for radiographers and radiation therapists.
Dr Freckelton is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law (FAAL) and also of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences (FASSA), as well as being an Honorary Fellow of the Australasian College of Forensic Medicine. In 2012 he was also appointed an Ambassador for Club Melbourne, a body which facilitates the conduct of international scholarly gatherings in Victoria.
In 2015 Dr Freckelton was appointed by the Victorian government as a Special Commissioner at the Victorian Law Reform Commission to lead its reference on the Medicinal Uses of Cannabis: http://www.lawreform.vic.gov.au/all-projects/medicinal-cannabis.
Dr Freckelton has also given over 500 addresses in more than 25 countries and has conducted training workshops and symposia for many different professionals, including medical practitioners, psychologists, accountants, and occupational health and safety experts. He is an instructor for the Victorian Bar Readers Course.
Between 2010 and 2013 Dr Freckelton was Chair of the Howells List (including the Laurence/Roberts Lists) at the Victorian Bar which numbered approximately 180 barristers.
