Saunders was the first woman to be appointed as a professor in the Law Faculty at University of Melbourne. She was also a founding director of its Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies. She has been awarded several honours in recognition of her work. In 1994 she was appointed an officer of the
Order of Australia "for service to the law and to public administration" and in 2003 she received the
Centenary Medal. and a Foundation Fellow of the
Australian Academy of Law. In 2022 she was awarded the
Tang Prize in the category "Rule of Law". ==References==