Christine Wheeler

Who is Christine Wheeler?

The Honourable Christine Ann Wheeler AO, QC is a former judge in the Supreme Court of Western Australia, from 1996 to 2005. From 2005 to 2010, she was an inaugural judge of the Court of Appeal. She retired from the Supreme Court on 25 February 2010.

Wheeler was educated at Kent Street Senior High School in Perth, and graduated from the University of Western Australia in 1975 with a Bachelor of Jurisprudence. She studied for a Master of Laws at University College London, before returning to Perth to complete her Bachelor of Laws in 1980. She served as an Assistant Crown Solicitor from 1984 to 1988, heading the Policy and Law Reform Unit. From 1988 to 1994 she held the positions of Senior Assistant Crown Solicitor and Senior Assistant Crown Counsel. In 1994 Wheeler was a part-time Judicial Registrar of the Industrial Relations Court of Australia.

She took silk in 1994, becoming the first woman in Western Australia to be appointed as a Queen's Counsel. She sat as a Commissioner in the District and Supreme Courts of Western Australia in 1995 and 1996 and was appointed to the bench on 30 October 1996, becoming the first female Justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia.