Accountability
The High Court is the end of the road for litigants; there is no further appeal to another court. Moreover, its Justices are appointed until retirement age, are not subject ...
Activism
Judicial activism is an expression coined in the US in the 1940s, which has since become a political slogan. Like many slogans, it bears different shades of meaning. In contemporary ...
Anthony Frank Mason
(born 21 April 1925; Justice 1972–87; Chief Justice 1987–95)was a member of the High Court for 23 years and is regarded by many as one of Australia's greatest judges ...
collective responsibility
A convention applied in the operations of the UK cabinet that decisions on important issues of policy should not be taken by individual ministers in advance of cabinet meetings, and that decisions, ...
Dietrich v The Queen
(1992).In Dietrich, a majority of the High Court (Mason, McHugh, Deane, Toohey and Gaudron; Brennan and Dawson dissenting) held that the lack of legal representation for an accused charged with a ...
Frank Walters Kitto
(born 30 July 1903; died 15 February 1994; Justice 1950–70)was a Justice with a powerful analytical mind and a reputation for legalism and conservatism. Eldest son of James Kitto ...
Garcia v National Australia Bank
(1998).In this case, the High Court was confronted with an anachronistic rule based upon controversial assumptions about the vulnerability of married women.Garcia concerned the circumstances in which ...
Gerard Brennan
(born 22 May 1928; Justice 1981–95; Chief Justice 1995–98).In many respects, Brennan embodied the tension that is at the heart of the judicial oath. He believed that it was ...
Gleeson Court
(22 May 1998–).At the end of 2000, Gleeson remained the most recently appointed Justice. A few months before his appointment, Dawson and Toohey retired and were replaced by Hayne ...
jurisprudence
N.The theoretical analysis of legal issues at the highest level of abstraction. Jurisprudence may be distinguished from both legal theory and the philosophy of law by its concern with those questions ...
Mabo
The surname of Eddie Koiki Mabo (1936–92), firstnamed plaintiff in the High Court case Mabo and Others v Queensland (No. 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1. This case is commonly referred to as ‘Mabo’.[...]
Mason Court
(6 February 1987 to 20 April 1995).The Mason Court was described by Maurice Byers in 1996 as one of ‘the most gifted and courageous High Courts in our history’. ...
Michael Hudson McHugh
(born 1 November 1935; Justice since 1989)was the product of a strong working-class tradition. His father had felt the bite of the Depression and valued loyalty to his friends ...
Personal relations: a personal reflection
Personal relationships between Justices, depending as they do upon so many diverse factors, vary considerably. Geographical propinquity, age, experience, shared experiences, common legal interests, ...
Policy considerations
‘“Policy”’ has become a hideously inexact word in legal discourse' (Neil MacCormick, Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory (1978). In this respect, ‘policy’ is not unlike ‘values’. Each term is used ...
positivism
A philosophical system which holds that every rationally justifiable assertion can be scientifically verified or is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and which therefore rejects metaphysics ...
precedent
N.A judgment or decision of a court, normally recorded in a law report, used as an authority for reaching the same decision in subsequent cases. In English law, judgments and decisions can represent ...
prospective overruling
A court ‘overrules’ the decision of an earlier court when it decides that a rule laid down in the earlier case should no longer be the law. In general, a ...
ratio decidendi
[Latin: the reason for deciding]The principle or principles of law on which the court reaches its decision. The ratio of the case has to be deduced from its facts, the reasons the court gave for ...
Role of Court
The principal responsibilities of the High Court are to uphold the Constitution, maintain the rule of law, and act as the nation's final court of appeal in civil and criminal cases.[...]
