David Malcolm

David Kingsley Malcolm, AC, QC (6 May 1938 – 20 October 2014) was the Chief Justice of Western Australia from May 1988 until his retirement from the bench in February 2006. He was also an expatriate justice of the Supreme Court of Fiji.

Early life Malcolm was born on 6 May 1938 in Bunbury, Western Australia. His father was a livestock salesman with Elder Smith & Co., while his mother, a teacher, was the granddaughter of Walkinshaw Cowan and niece by marriage of Edith Cowan.

Malcolm was educated at Guildford Grammar School and went on to the University of Western Australia, graduating Bachelor of Laws in 1959. He was chosen as Western Australia's Rhodes Scholar in 1960 and subsequently completed a Bachelor of Civil Law at Wadham College, Oxford.

At his farewell, the Attorney-General, Jim McGinty, commented on the landmark judgement that Malcolm had handed down in the appeal of John Button, a high-profile case in which a manslaughter conviction was quashed over 30 years after the event. Wayne Martin replaced Malcolm as Chief Justice, and Malcolm later became Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle.

Death and legacy

Malcolm died in Perth in October 2014, aged 76. The David Malcolm Justice Centre, a 33-storey skyscraper located on Cathedral Square in the Perth CBD, was named in his honour in 2016. The tower houses the civil arm of the Supreme Court and offices for the Department of the Attorney General and Department of Treasury.