Time for some Newman Nostalgia!
Continuing our celebration of some of our amazing high achievers from years gone by, this week we showcase one who made an unequalled contribution in the field of Law.
Fiori Rinaldi AM was born in Kalgoorlie in 1929, and was a boarder at our earliest antecedent School, St Ildephonsus College in New Norcia. He completed his Leaving in 1946 and went on to study Philosophy at the University of Western Australia, from which he graduated with Honours in 1950. After a short stint as a journalist he then joined the Australian Taxation Office.
In 1958 he went to Queensland where he lectured in Philosophy at the University of Queensland and began studying for a degree in Law, part time. He finished his Law degree in 1963 and began lecturing in Law at the Australian National University in Canberra.
In 1979 Fiori saw the need for a comprehensive register of criminal law reports, containing sentencing precedents from the High, Federal, and Supreme Courts of Australia.
He was extraordinarily driven and passionate about this work in creating the Australian Criminal Reports. He was the sole editor and contributor of Volumes 1-147, and a joint editor for 148-165. The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG wrote in Fiori’s obituary in The West Australian of 31 July 2015, “Suddenly, thanks to Rinaldi, it became easier to see the whole landscape of Australia's criminal law.”
Today Fiori's legacy is contained in 225 volumes, each one bound in bright red or blue, and they fill the bookshelves of every legal office in the country.
As readers will have gathered from an earlier paragraph, Fiori died in 2015, aged 85. Kirby continued, "One can almost imagine him contesting judgments of the Almighty at the Pearly Gates and pointing to inconsistencies, lack of rigour, inelegant expression and the need for more attention to principles and an occasional measure of kindness.”
What an incredible Newmanite!
Fiori was survived by his lovely wife Nena, to whom he had been happily married for 63 years, their son Geoffrey, four granddaughters and three great granddaughters.
