Murray Wesson

Dr Murray Wesson is an Associate Professor in the Law School, University of Western Australia, where he teaches and researches constitutional law, human rights law and legal theory. He has published widely in these areas, especially on the implied freedom of political communication in Australian constitutional law and social and economic rights in South African constitutional law. He is lead Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities grant, 'Digitisting the Drafting of the Australian Constitution.' Through a collaboration between the Quill Project at the University of Oxford and nine Australian universities, the grant will support the creation of an open-access, online archive that consolidates, corrects and enhances the digital record of the drafting of the Australian Constitution. Murray is an ordinary member of the Council of the Australian Association of Constitutional Law and also co-convenor of the Western Australian chapter. He is regularly interviewed by the media on issues in his areas of expertise and has made numerous submissions to parliamentary and other inquiries.

Muray previously taught at the Central European University, the University of Leeds and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He completed his BA and LLB degrees at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and BCL and DPhil degrees at the University of Oxford, where he studied as the Kwa-Zulu Natal Rhodes Scholar.

Murray was Deputy Head, Students from 2020-2022. In this role, he was a member of the Law School executive and assisted students with course planning and providing pastoral support. He was Academic Conduct Advisor for the Law School from 2015-2019. 

• Associate Professor Murray Wesson, Professor Sarah Murray, Dr Tamara Tulich, Professor John Williams, Professor Anne Twomey, Professor Dr Nicholas Aroney, Professor James Stellios, Professor Rosalind Dixon, Professor Ann Genovese, Associate Professor Luke Beck, Associate Professor Melissa Castan, Associate Professor Benjamin Saunders, Dr Dylan Lino, Ms Jacinta Dharmananda, Dr Nicholas Cole, 'Digitising the Drafting of the Australian Constitution', Australian Research Council Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities grant (LE230100159), 01/09/23-01/09/25.

• Associate Professor Philip Chung, Professor Andrew Mowbray, Dr Gabrielle Appleby, Professor Anita Stuhmcke, Professor Thalia Anthony, Professor Robert Cunningham, Professor Mark Lunney, Professor Matthew Groves, Professor Gregory Taylor, Associate Professor Luke Beck, Associate Professor Andrew Edgar, Dr Tanya Josev, Dr Dominique Dalla-Pozza, and Dr Vicky Comino and Dr Murray Wesson, ‘The Australian Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries Library’, Australian Research Council Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities grant (LE210100043), 31/12/2021-31/12/2022: $539,000.

• Ned Curthoys, Ethan Blue, Ky Gentry, Kelly Gerard, Shino Konishi, Dylan Lino, Sarah Murray, Bonnie Thomas, Murray Wesson, Michael Gillan, 'Ensuring the Right to have Rights', UWA Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Education Research Accelerator Grant, 2018: $20,000.

• Murray Wesson, ‘Executive Power workshop’, Institute of Advanced Studies, 7 April 2017: $2005.

• Murray Wesson, Joe Fardin and Wasi Apoh, ‘Customary Law and Mining – Australia and Ghana’, Australian Agency for International Development, 01/08/2014-31/07/15: $49,237.

Murray teaches LAWS4108 Foundations of Public Law, LAWS5101 Constitutional Law and LAWS2224 Evolution of Human Rights. He regularly supervises students in the LAWS5509 Advanced Legal Research and LAWS5512 Supervised Research units. He has also supervised numerous MPhil and PhD students.

In 2015, Murray was the Blackstone Society Law Teacher of the Year, which recognises a staff member who has gone above and beyond in ensuring that students in the UWA Law School have a positive educational experience.

Murray's research interests are in the areas of constitutional law, human rights law and legal theory. He is especially interested in issues of free speech and the implied freedom of political communication in Australian constitutional law.