Professor Cheryl Saunders AO

Overview

Cheryl Saunders is a Laureate Professor Emeritus in Melbourne Law School and has specialist interests in Australian and comparative public law, including comparative constitutional law and method, federalism and intergovernmental relations, and constitutional design and change. She teaches a range of subjects in the MLM and supervises PhD students working on questions in Australian and comparative constitutional law. She is the founding Director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies and a convenor of the Constitution Transformation Network. She is co-editor of the Public Law Review, covering public law in New Zealand and all Australian jurisdictions. In 2022, she was awarded the Tang Prize in the Rule of Law.

Much of Cheryl Saunders’ recent research focusses on the challenges of taking an appropriately global approach to comparative public law and draws insights in particular from the diverse regions of Asia and the Pacific. Current interests include the role of culture in public law, and the potential relevance of the idea of a constitutional imaginary, on which she gave the Maccabaean Lecture in Jurisprudence for the British Academy in 2025. Recent publications include ‘After the Voice’, (2025) 3 Comparative Constitutional Studies, 189; ‘Parameters of External Assistance’, (2025) 11 Constitutional Studies 373-384; ‘The Seventh Wave of Constitution-Making in Retrospect’, (2025) 55 Hong Kong Law Journal 405; and ‘The Role of Comparative Materials in Constitutional Interpretation’ in Sujit Choudhry, Catherine O’Regan and Carlos Bernal (eds) Research Handbook on Constitutional Interpretation (Edward Elgar, 2025), 326.

Cheryl Saunders is a President Emeritus of the International Association of Constitutional Law, a former President of the International Association of Centres for Federal Studies and a former President of the Administrative Review Council of Australia. She has held distinguished visiting positions in law schools in many parts of the world. She is an officer of the Order of Australia and a Chevalier dans l'Ordre National de la Legion d'Honneur of France. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

In addition to her research and teaching activities, Cheryl Saunders has engaged widely in the practical application of public law, in Australia and elsewhere, and continues to do so. From 1991, as deputy chair of the Australian Constitutional Centenary Foundation, she was closely involved in its pioneering work to encourage public understanding of the Constitution. She has had some involvement in aspects of constitutional advice and design in other countries, including Fiji, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Iraq, Nepal and Myanmar. She is a former member of the Advisory Board of International IDEA and was subsequently a senior technical advisor to its Constitution Building program. She was a member of the Constitutional Expert Group on the Voice Referendum in 2022 and a member of the Administrative Review Expert Advisory Group in 2023.

Other School and University responsibilities

Acting Director, Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies

Memberships and affiliations

• President Emeritus, International Association of Constitutional Law
• Associate Member, International Academy of Comparative Law