Alice Tay

Alice Erh-Soon Tay (1934–2004) was an Australian academic lawyer, an eminent jurisprudence and comparative law scholar. She was president of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission from 1998 to 2003.

Early life and education Tay was born in Singapore in 1934. She was admitted to the Singapore Bar in 1957 and practiced as a criminal lawyer. In 1959 she moved to the new law department at the University of Malaya (now the National University of Singapore). She moved to Australia in 1961. Four years later she obtained her PhD from the Australian National University. During her time at the ALRC, she contributed to several major inquiries — including The Recognition of Aboriginal Customary Laws (ALRC 31, 1986); Privacy (ALRC 22, 1983); Contempt (ALRC 35, 1987) and Matrimonial Property (ALRC 39, 1987). She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 1986 and was awarded an LLD (honoris causa) from the University of Edinburgh in 1989.

Tributes A street in the Canberra suburb of Watson is named after her. The gazetted notice of the ACT Government noted her role in "court interventions regarding the MV Tampa".

The Annual Alice Tay Lecture in Law and Human Rights was established in 2005 by the Herbert and Valmae Freilich Foundation at the Australian National University. This lecture was established to acknowledge both Tay's championship of human rights in Australia and her contributions as a member of the Foundation's board over a number of years.