Ian Borrin Lecture

The Borrin Lecture is delivered in honour of Judge Ian Borrin, an alumnus and major supporter of the Victoria University of Wellington Law Review.

The Borrin Lecture is delivered each year by the recipient of the annual Borrin Visiting Fellowship.

Judge Ian Borrin was a longstanding and major supporter of the Victoria University of Wellington Law Review. In 2010, with the Faculty of Law, he established a Visiting Fellowship in Law at the University. It aims to enable scholars, academics and members of the judiciary to visit the Law School, engage with the public through presentations and seminars, and enhance research by interacting with staff and postgraduate students.

Judge Borrin was born in Wellington on 13 February 1935. He attended Wellington College and Victoria University of Wellington where he gained an LLB in 1958. He practised law until 1983 when he was appointed to the District Court. He served as head of the Police Complaints Authority from 2001 until he retired in 2007.

Before his death in 2016 he established the Michael and Suzanne Borrin Foundation to support legal research, scholarship, writing and education in New Zealand.

A room at the Law School, the Ian Borrin Reading Room, is named in his honour.

Past Borrin lectures have been given by:

2023 - Professor Aileen Kavanagh: "Deconstructing Declarations", a lecture delivered as part of the International Winter Series 2023
2019 - Professor Martti Koskenniemi: "History of the Law of Nations: Sovereignty and Property"
2018 - Martha C Nussbaum: "Anger, Powerlessness, and the Politics of Blame"
2017 - Professor Neil S Siegel: "The US Constitution, Constitutional Conventions and President Trump"
2016 - Professor Dawn Oliver: "Constitutional Guardianship: The Roles of Public or State Sector Bodies"
2015 - Professor Peter Mirfield: "The Right to Confrontation in Three Common Law Jurisdictions"
2014 - Professor Kent Roach: "Remedies for Laws that Violate Human Rights: Breaking Down the Diochotomy of Strong and Weak Form Judicial Review"
2013 - Sir Paul Walker: "Rights, Wrong and Proportionality"
2011 - Lord Collins of Mapesbury: "With all due respect to the Judiciary?"