Marcus Einfeld

Einfeld's paternal grandfather was the Reverend Marcus Einfeld (1874-1937), who came to Australia in 1909 (becoming the chazan and the Second Minister of the Great Synagogue) by way of London, England, to which he had immigrated from Jarosław in Galicia with his wife Deborah (née Gabel; d. 1957).

His parents were the Labor Party politician Syd Einfeld and his wife Billie Rose (née Appelboom), who married in June 1934.

His father served in both Federal Parliament and the Parliament of New South Wales.

Marcus Richard Einfeld (born 22 September 1938) is an Australian former judge of the Federal Court of Australia and was the inaugural president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

He was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice and served two years in prison.

Einfeld studied law at the University of Sydney.

His father Syd Einfeld was a federal MP.

His updated Who's Who entry, which was published after he had been arrested and charged with perjury, also corrected his year of birth (previously listed as 1939) and removed a claim that he had once been a director of the multinational firm Marks & Spencer in the 1970s.

Einfeld has four children, two from each of two marriages.

Einfeld attended Sydney Boys High School from 1951 to 1955.

He was called to the bar in 1962, and appointed Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1977.

He then obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Sydney in 1962.

At some point, Einfeld began claiming that he held doctorates from both "Century University" and "Pacific Western University"; both are U.S.-based diploma mills without any accreditation as law schools.

Einfeld became a barrister in 1962.

He married his first wife Yetta, a teacher, in 1963 and that had two children before they divorced in 1977.

From 1972 to 1976, Einfeld was a director of the World Jewish Congress, based in London.

After returning to Australia he became one of Sydney's most prominent barristers.

He was appointed a Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1977, aged 39.

He represented High Court Justice Lionel Murphy in his legal challenge to the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry which had been established to examine whether Murphy had perverted the course of justice; the inquiry was suspended when Murphy became terminally ill.

He married his second wife Anne, an attorney, in 1982 and they had two children before they divorced in 1996.

He was subsequently in a long-term relationship with Sylvia Eisman.

Einfeld was appointed to the Federal Court in 1986, serving until 2001.

Einfeld was appointed to the Federal Court in 1986.

Einfeld was also an additional Justice of the Australian Capital Territory.

He was appointed to a seven-year term in December 1986, but resigned after three years citing an inability to combine the role with his judicial duties.

Those qualifications were referred to by Attorney-General Lionel Bowen when Einfeld was added to the Federal Court in 1987, and were listed in his Who's Who in Australia entry until 2007.

In 1987 he led the commission's enquiry into the living conditions of Aboriginal people in the border area of New South Wales and Queensland.

An Aboriginal elder praised his work with Indigenous communities when he was Human Rights Commissioner.

In the same year he was made the inaugural president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, serving until 1989.

He was also the inaugural president of the Australian Paralympic Committee from 1990 to 1992.

He retired as a judge in April 2001.

Einfeld was the founding president of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

In 2006, Einfeld was issued a A$77 speeding ticket for travelling 10 km/h (6.2 mph) over the limit.

He appealed the ticket, claiming that he had not been driving.

Journalists subsequently discovered that he had made a number of false statements under oath; the woman he had said was driving had in fact died several years earlier.

Einfeld was arrested in 2007, and the following year pleaded guilty to perjury and perverting the course of justice.

He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

As a result of his actions, Einfeld was expelled from the legal profession and stripped of many of the honours he had previously accumulated, including his status as a Queen's Counsel, appointment of the Order of Australia, and his status as a National Living Treasure.

Einfeld was born in Sydney, and was named after his paternal grandfather who had died a year earlier.

He has a sister.