Members

The Hon Justice Melissa Perry - Deputy President

Justice Perry was appointed to the Defence Force Discipline Appeal Tribunal as a Member on 27 September 2018, and as Deputy President of that Tribunal in 2023. She has been a judge of the Federal Court of Australia since 2013.

Since 2011, Justice Perry has also served as a Squadron Leader with the Royal Australian Air Force, Legal Specialist Reserves.

Justice Perry graduated from the University of Adelaide and was admitted as a practitioner in 1985. She was subsequently awarded an LLM and PhD in public international law from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. Her doctorate on State succession, boundaries and territorial regimes was awarded the Yorke Prize.

She practiced at the Bar from 1992 to 2013, being appointed Queen’s Counsel for South Australia in 2004. She was admitted to the Bar of England and Wales in 2012, joining Inner Temple.

Justice Perry was a Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge for three months in 2005/2006 and a part-time Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian National University in 2003. She is a Fellow and former Director of the Australian Academy of Law, and a member of the Advisory Committee to the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, University of New South Wales, the Law School Advisory Board and the Research Unit on Military Law and Ethics, University of Adelaide, and the advisory board, Centre for International and Public Law, Australian National University. In addition, she is a section-editor with the Australian Law Journal and was appointed as the Federal Court representative on the Judicial Council on Cultural Diversity (JCCD) from 2014-2023. The JCCD is an advisory body formed to assist Australian courts, judicial officers and administrators to positively respond to Australia’s diverse needs, including the particular issues that arise in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Justice Perry is also the Patron for the NSW Chapter of the Hellenic Australian Lawyers Association.