Mrs Frances Wright
Lecturer, Faculty of The Professions, School of Law
Qualifications
BA (Hons) (Stirling), LLB (Auckland), LLM (Victoria University of Wellington)
Contact
| Email: | fran.wright@une.edu.au |
| Room: | 43, W38 |
| Phone: | 02 6773 2713 (or +61 2 6773 2713 overseas) |
| Fax: | 02 6773 2580 |
Publications
Book chapters
Fran Wright and Jess Guth, ‘“We Don’t Have the Key to the Executive Washroom”: Women’s Perceptions and Experiences of Promotion in Academia” in Aileen Cater-Steel & Emily Steel (eds), Women in Engineering, Science and Technology: Education and Career Challenges (IGI Global, 2010))
Journal articles
Fran Wright, ‘The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: Criminal Law, Down Syndrome, and a Life Worth Living’ (2011) 1 Law, Crime and History 62
Fran Wright, ‘Confronting Inequality and Celebrating Diversity - Some Reflections on Teaching an Introduction to English Legal History at Bradford University Law School’ (2010) Law in Brief (published by Bradford University Law School)
Fran Wright, ‘Certainty and Ascertainability of Criminal Law After the Pitcairn Trials” (2009) 39(4) Victoria University of Wellington Law Review 659
Fran Wright, ‘Legality and Reality: Some Lessons From the Pitcairn Islands” (2009) 73(1) Journal of Criminal Law 59
Fran Wright and Jess Guth, ‘Women in the Higher Education Sector’ (2009) 38 Industrial Law Journal 139
Fran Wright, ‘The Theory of Justification and Excuse and its Application to Self-Defence” (2008) 6(1) Journal of Commonwealth Law and Legal Education 55
Fran Wright, ‘Criminal Law: Ascertainability” (2007) 71(2) Journal of Criminal Law 137
Fran Wright, ‘Reckless Attempts Revisited” [2006] New Zealand Law Journal 208
Fran Wright, ‘R v James’ [2006] New Zealand Law Journal 69
Fran Wright, Elisabeth McDonald and Yvette Tinsley, ‘The Supreme Court Provokes a Response” [2005] New Zealand Law Journal 257
Fran Wright, ‘Pitcairn – the saga continues’ [2005] New Zealand Law Journal 295
Fran Wright, ‘Criminal Nuisance: Getting Back to Basics” (2005) 21 New Zealand Universities Law Review 665
Book reviews
Fran Wright, ‘Fiduciary Duties: Directors and Employees’ (2010) 52(5) International Journal of Law and Management 405 - 406
Conference presentations
September 2010, Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference, ‘Chinese Whispers: Women Academics Talking About Promotion’
September 2010, Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference, ‘What’s the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Miss? Teaching a Compulsory First Year Module in English Legal History at Bradford University Law School’
September 2010, Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference, ‘The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same: Criminal Law, Down Syndrome and a Life Worth Living’
December 2009: Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society conference, paper entitled “ ‘What’s the dissolution of the monasteries, miss?’ Teaching a compulsory first year module in English Legal History at Bradford University Law School”
September 2008: Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference, paper on “Women in the Higher Education Sector – looking behind the statistics” (joint paper delivered by Jess Guth)
September 2007: Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference, paper on “Legality v reality: some lessons from the Pitcairn islands”
May 2007: Conference at University of Kent entitled “Monitoring Parents: Childrearing in an Age of ‘Intensive Parenting’”, paper on “Compulsory Intensive Mothering: Parenting a Child with a Disability”.
March 2006: Socio Legal Studies Conference, paper on “Accident and mistake in provocation”
Areas of Teaching
LS160 (Criminal Law & Procedure), LS397 (Criminal Defences), LS342 (Medical Law)
Criminal Law, Equity, Wills & Succession, Medical Law
Research interests
Fran is currently working on a number of projects.
The first project looks at prescribed drugs that lead to addictive behaviour which in turn leads to criminal activity. This has been a particular issue with some of the drugs used for Parkinsons Disease. Although it is possible that in some cases, the drug-induced behaviour could be brought within the insanity defence, the drugs are more likely to be seen as causing an irresistible impulse and this is outside the definition of insanity in most jurisdictions. A claim that the behaviour is involuntary is also problematic, because criminal law is concerned with whether the offender had the required mental state, eg, intent or dishonesty, rather than with why they had it. It is likely that the elements of an offence would be established. The real issue in cases of this type is whether addictive behaviour is less culpable, especially when the addiction was the result of medical treatment. This requires consideration and review of theories of criminal responsibility and the impact that neuroscience has on these.
Another project that Fran is working on examines the way in which disability is framed in legislation and also case-law. People don’t talk about disability in the same way in all contexts. Disability campaigners talk about different models of disability, and this project seeks to identify the ‘hidden’ models of disability found in judicial writing on child welfare and custody, medical treatment, immigration, criminal responsibility and liability for negligence. Preliminary surveys of case-law suggests that the dominant models of disability are the medical model (especially when a person with a disability is engaging with state agencies) and ‘tragedy’ model of disability. The project will also look at the different way in which disability is constructed in social welfare law and equality law and at an emerging notion of genetic responsibility for a person’s own wellness and the wellness of their children.
Fran has also recently started gathering information for a historical examination of political activism in the UK in the 1960s, with a particular emphasis on the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Committee of One Hundred. The project looks at the criminal law response to direct action by protestors and at the consequences of that response for wider legal development and the lives of those who were involved in the protest movement.
Research Interests
Criminal Law, Modern Legal History, Medical Law