Catherine Branson first female crown solicitor and department head before leading human rights commission

Catherine Branson was president of the Australian Human Rights Commission 2008-12.

Catherine Branson, at 36, became Australia’s first female crown solicitor and South Australian’s first permanent head of a government department – the attorney-general's – before later being appointed a federal court judge. She became an advocate for human rights and civil liberties and a president of the Australian Human Rights Commission 2008-12.

Branson grew up on a farm near Hallett and went to Presbyterian Girl School before graduating at Adelaide University with a bachelor of laws and bachelor of arts.

Branson worked at the South Australian legal services department in 1977 before moving to the crown solicitor's office. She took on the dual role of South Australian crown solicitor and chief executive officer of the attorney general’s department from 1984 to 1989.

Branson practised as a barrister at the South Australian bar from 1989, mainly in administrative and commercial law. She was appointed Queen’s Counsel in in 1992.

In 1994, Branson became a federal court judge, She was a member of the full court considering the Yorta Yorta people’s appeal concerning their native title claim. She was in the majority upholding Justice Olney's finding that the “tide of history” had  “washed away” any real acknowledgement of traditional laws and any real observance of traditional customs by the Yorta Yorta community. Branson was a judge on the full court that unanimously dismissed an appeal by The Wilderness Society concerning approval of the Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania.

Branson was the president of the Australian Institute for Judicial Administration from 1998 to 2000. She retired from the Federal Court in 2008. As president of the Australian Human Rights Commission 2008-12, Branson  supported a federal charter of human rights, same-sex marriage and opposed mandatory detention for asylum seekers.

In 2012, Branson was given an honorary doctor of laws by Flinders University for her “long and esteemed career in the law”and an honorary doctorate of letters from Macquarie University for her support and advocacy for human rights. Branson was appointed chancellor of Adelaide University in 2020.