Owen's formative years were spent in Western Australia, where his schooling took place at a residential college in a rural setting rather than in the state capital. His later career developed mainly in Perth, where he trained in law, practised as a barrister and solicitor, and sat on the bench. He lives in Perth.
Owen was educated at St Ildephonsus College in New Norcia, a country boarding school conducted by the Marist Brothers. New Norcia had been founded in 1846 as a Benedictine mission and monastic settlement, so the college was situated within a religious community rather than in an urban setting. The Marist Brothers are a Catholic teaching congregation founded in France in 1817.
Owen studied law at the University of Western Australia, graduating in 1968 with a Bachelor of Laws with honours. Founded in 1911, it was the first university in Western Australia, and its law school provided the academic training for his legal career.
Later in his career Owen returned to teaching as an adjunct professor of law and visiting lecturer at the University of Western Australia and at the University of Notre Dame Australia. The latter is a Catholic university established in Western Australia in 1989, and Owen served as its inaugural chancellor.
Owen practised as a barrister and solicitor in Western Australia after his university studies, and he was admitted to the bar in 1970. Early in his career he practised with E.M. Heenan & Co, a small Western Australian firm whose work covered criminal, family and commercial law.
From 1975 until 1984 Owen was a partner in Bryant & Owen, a small West Perth firm. His practice was broadly based in commercial law, including corporate structures, insolvency, trusts and equity, commercial litigation and media law. In 1984 Bryant & Owen merged with Robinson Cox, and Owen remained a partner of Robinson Cox until 31 January 1991. Robinson Cox later became part of the national firm Clayton Utz.
Owen was appointed to the Supreme Court of Western Australia on 1 February 1991, when he was 43 and one of the youngest judges ever appointed to that court. The Supreme Court was the highest court in the state. In 2005 he became an inaugural member of the Court of Appeal, which had been established as a separate division of the Supreme Court, and he later served as a senior judge of that court. He retired from the Supreme Court in 2010 after nineteen years of service.
During his judicial career Owen headed the Royal Commission into the collapse of the HIH Insurance group, an Australian insurer whose failure was among the largest corporate collapses in the country's history. The commission completed its work in April 2003. He also began a three-year hearing into the Bell group of companies associated with Alan Bond, one of the nation's longest running and most expensive civil actions.
After retiring from the bench, Owen took on further public roles. He became chair of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council in April 2014. In March 2021 he was appointed chairman of a three-person royal commission into the Crown Perth casino, an appointment that drew criticism over a perceived conflict of interest, which the Premier rejected.
Together with former Chief Justice David Malcolm, he helped restore equity to the University of Western Australia law curriculum, a change made more than twenty years before 2010.
He completed the Royal Commission into the collapse of the HIH Insurance group in April 2003, a national inquiry into one of Australia's largest corporate failures.
He began the three-year hearing into the Bell group of companies associated with Alan Bond, described as one of the nation's longest running and most expensive civil actions.
He was appointed chairman of the three-person royal commission into the Crown Perth casino in 2021.
Owen's public religious commitments are closely connected with the Roman Catholic Church in Australia. He chairs the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, a body established by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference to coordinate the Church's response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He is also a member of a professional standards group for the Archdiocese of Perth, and he holds the papal honour of Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory the Great.
Catholicism belongs to the Christian tradition that recognizes the authority of the Bishop of Rome and the sacramental life of the Church. In the early twenty-first century, the Australian Church faced public scrutiny over child sexual abuse, which led to a national Royal Commission established in 2013 and to церковь-based response bodies such as the council Owen chairs.
Owen has held several governance roles in Catholic and educational institutions. The Truth, Justice and Healing Council was created by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference to oversee the Church's engagement with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and Owen chairs it.
He has also been connected with St John of God Australia, a health-care organization with Catholic origins, and with the University of Notre Dame Australia, where he has served on the Board of Governors and remains a trustee. Iona Presentation College is a Catholic school in Perth, and Owen has chaired its board, as well as the governing bodies of several other primary and secondary schools.
Chair
Truth, Justice and Healing Council , Australia
April, 2014 - present
Member of the Board of Governors from near its inception, later a trustee
University of Notre Dame Australia , Australia
1989 - present
Chair of the Trustees
St John of God Australia Limited , Australia
Chair of the Board
Iona Presentation College , Australia
Member
Professional Standards Resources Group, Archdiocese of Perth , Australia
Quotes from others about the person
At his 2010 farewell from the Supreme Court of Western Australia, speakers credited him with a long commitment to teaching in Western Australian universities and with an active role in the Law Society's Law Summer School.
Owen has five children, one of whom has died.
