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Kruger V Commonwealth
In ''Kruger v Commonwealth'', decided in 1997, also known as the Stolen Generation Case, the High Court of Australia rejected a challenge to the validity of legislation applying in the Northern Territory between 1918 and 1957 which authorised the removal of Aboriginal children from their families. The majority of the bench found that the ''Aboriginals Ordinance 1918'' was beneficial in intent and had neither the purpose of genocide nor that of restricting the practice of religion. The High Court unanimously held there was no separate action for a breach of any constitutional right.. Background Indigenous Australians have lived in the Northern Territory for at least 40,000 years. In 1863 the Territory came under the control of South Australia which in 1910 passed the ''Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910''.. The Act claimed to be for the "Protection and Control" of the Aboriginal people of the Territory. Under the Act, the "Chief Protector of Aboriginals" was appoin ...
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High Court Of Australia
The High Court of Australia is Australia's apex court. It exercises Original jurisdiction, original and appellate jurisdiction on matters specified within Constitution of Australia, Australia's Constitution. The High Court was established following passage of the ''Judiciary Act 1903''. It derives its authority from Chapter III of the Australian Constitution, which vests it responsibility for the judiciary, judicial power of the Commonwealth. Important legal instruments pertaining to the High Court include the ''Judiciary Act 1903'' and the ''High Court of Australia Act 1979''.. Its bench is composed of seven justices, including a Chief Justice of Australia, Chief Justice, currently Susan Kiefel. Justices of the High Court are appointed by the Governor-General of Australia, Governor-General on the Advice (constitutional law), advice of the Prime Minister of Australia, Prime Minister and are appointed permanently until their mandatory retirement at age 70, unless they retire ea ...
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Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910
The ''Northern Territory Aboriginals Act 1910'' was an Act of the South Australian parliament (Act no. 1024/1910), assented to on 7 December 1910. The Act established the Northern Territory Aboriginals Department, to be responsible for the control and welfare of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, and created the office of Chief Protector of Aborigines. On 1 January 1911, the Northern Territory was transferred from South Australia to federal government control. The 1910 Act was repealed by the federal government's ''Aboriginals Ordinance 1918'' on 13 June 1918, which nevertheless carried forward many of the provisions of the 1910 Act. A 1939 amendment replaced the position of Chief Protector with Director of Native Affairs. The ''Welfare Ordinance 1953'' repealed the ''Aboriginals Ordinance 1918'', coming into force in 1957, along with the ''Wards Employment Ordinance 1953'', together making all Aboriginal people in the Territory wards of the state, with the government ha ...
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Charles Powers
Sir Charles Powers (3 March 1853 – 24 April 1939) was an Australian politician and judge who served as Justice of the High Court of Australia from 1913 to 1929. Early life Powers was born in 1853 in Brisbane, Queensland. He was educated at Ipswich Grammar School and Brisbane Grammar School captaining the Schools First XI. He was a talented sportsman, and at one point captained a state cricket team against a touring English side. After completing his articles of clerkship, Powers was admitted to practise law as a solicitor in 1876, after which he moved to Bundaberg to practise. In 1878, he married Kate Ann Thorburn, whose father was a solicitor from Victoria. Powers continued to work in Bundaberg until 1882. Politics In 1883 Powers became the mayor of Maryborough. In June 1888, Powers was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland for Burrum. On 19 November 1889, Powers became Postmaster-General and Minister for Edu ...
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Isaac Isaacs
Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs (6 August 1855 – 11 February 1948) was an Australian lawyer, politician, and judge who served as the ninth Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1931 to 1936. He had previously served on the High Court of Australia from 1906 to 1931, including as Chief Justice from 1930. Isaacs was born in Melbourne and grew up in Yackandandah and Beechworth (in country Victoria). He began working as a schoolteacher at the age of 15, and later moved to Melbourne to work as a clerk and studied law part-time at the University of Melbourne. Isaacs was admitted to the bar in 1880, and soon became one of Melbourne's best-known barristers. He was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1892, and subsequently served as Solicitor-General under James Patterson, and Attorney-General under George Turner and Alexander Peacock. Isaacs entered the new federal parliament at the 1901 election, representing the Protectionist Party. He became Attorney-General ...
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Edmund Barton
Sir Edmund "Toby" Barton, (18 January 18497 January 1920) was an Australian politician and judge who served as the first prime minister of Australia from 1901 to 1903, holding office as the leader of the Protectionist Party. He resigned to become a founding member of the High Court of Australia, where he served until his death. Barton was an early supporter of the federation of the Australian colonies, the goal of which he summarised as "a nation for a continent, and a continent for a nation". After the retirement of Henry Parkes he came to be seen as the leader of the federation movement in New South Wales. He was a delegate to the constitutional conventions, playing a key role in the drafting of a national constitution, and was one of the lead campaigners for federation in the subsequent referendums. In late 1900, despite the initial " Hopetoun Blunder", Barton was commissioned to form a caretaker government as Australia's first prime minister. His term began on 1 J ...
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Samuel Griffith
Sir Samuel Walker Griffith, (21 June 1845 – 9 August 1920) was an Australian judge and politician who served as the inaugural Chief Justice of Australia, in office from 1903 to 1919. He also served a term as Chief Justice of Queensland and two terms as Premier of Queensland, and played a key role in the drafting of the Australian Constitution. Griffith was born in Wales, arriving in the Moreton Bay district of New South Wales (now the state of Queensland) at the age of eight. He attended the University of Sydney, and after further legal training was called to the bar in 1867. Griffith was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1872. He served as Attorney-General from 1874 to 1878, and subsequently became the leader of the parliament's liberal faction. Griffith's terms as premier ran from 1883 to 1888 and from 1890 to 1893. He led the Australian delegation to the 1887 Colonial Conference and took a keen interest in external affairs, giving financial and administrat ...
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Waterside Workers' Federation Of Australia V J W Alexander Ltd
''Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia v J W Alexander Ltd'' is a landmark Australian judgment of the High Court made in 1918 regarding judicial power of the Commonwealth which established that Chapter III of the Constitution required judges to be appointed for life to a specific court, subject only to the removal provisions in the constitution. The majority of the High Court held that because the President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration was appointed for seven years and not life as required by s 72 of the Constitution, the Arbitration Court could not exercise judicial powers of the Commonwealth. Background The Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia applied to the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration for a penalty to be imposed on J W Alexander Ltd for the breach of an award. H. B. Higgins was appointed for life as a judge of the High Court, however his appointment as President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbi ...
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New South Wales V Commonwealth (1915)
''New South Wales v Commonwealth'', commonly known as the Wheat case, or more recently as the Inter-State Commission case, is a landmark Australian judgment of the High Court made in 1915 regarding judicial separation of power. It was also a leading case on the freedom of interstate trade and commerce that is guaranteed by section 92 of the Constitution.Commonwealth of Australia Constitutionsection 92./ref> Background In 1914 there were rising prices in Australia for various commodities, including wheat, caused by a drought in Australia from 1911 to 1916 and the outbreak of World War I in July 1914. The initial response of the Parliament of NSW was to fix the price of wheat at 4s 2d (4 shillings and 2 pence) per bushel while the then market price was 5 p higher at 4s 7d. Farmers and merchants refused to sell their wheat at that price and resulted in the Government seizure of wheat stored at railway yards. By December 1914 the market price in Victoria had risen to 5s 6d. The ...
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Chapter III Court
In Australian constitutional law, Chapter III Courts are courts of law which are a part of the Australian federal judiciary and thus are able to discharge Commonwealth judicial power. They are so named because the prescribed features of these courts are contained in Chapter III of the Australian Constitution. Separation of powers in Australia The doctrine of separation of powers refers to a system of government whereby three aspects of government powerlegislative power, executive power, and judicial powerare vested in separate institutions. This doctrine holds that abuse of power can be avoided by each arm of government acting as a check on another. In Australia, this separation is implied in the structure of the Constitution. Chapter I outlines legislative powerthe making, altering or repealing of laws; Chapter II outlines executive powerthe general and detailed carrying on of governmental functions; Chapter III outlines judicial powerthe interpretation of law, and adjudication ...
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Separation Of Powers In Australia
The separation of powers in Australia is the division of the institutions of the Australian government into legislative, executive and judicial branches. This concept is where legislature makes the laws, the executive put the laws into operation, and the judiciary interprets the laws; all independently of each other. The term, and its occurrence in Australia, is due to the text and structure of the Australian Constitution, which derives its influences from democratic concepts embedded in the Westminster system, the doctrine of "''responsible government''" and the United States version of the separation of powers. However, due to the conventions of the Westminster system, a strict separation of powers is not always evident in the Australian political system, with little separation between the executive and the legislature, with the executive required to be drawn from, and maintain the confidence of, the legislature; a fusion.. The first three chapters of the Australian Constitu ...
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Genocide Convention
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was the first legal instrument to codify genocide as a crime, and the first human rights treaty unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, on 9 December 1948, during the third session of the United Nations General Assembly. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951 and has 152 state parties . The Genocide Convention was conceived largely in response to World War II, which saw atrocities such as the Holocaust that lacked an adequate description or legal definition. Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who had coined the term genocide in 1944 to describe Nazi policies in occupied Europe and the Armenian genocide, campaigned for its recognition as a crime under international law. This culminated in 1946 in a land ...
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Bringing Them Home
''Bringing Them Home'' is the 1997 Australian ''Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families''. The report marked a pivotal moment in the controversy that has come to be known as the Stolen Generations. The inquiry was established by the federal Attorney-General, Michael Lavarch, on 11 May 1995, in response to efforts made by key Indigenous agencies and communities concerned that the general public's ignorance of the history of forcible removal was hindering the recognition of the needs of its victims and their families and the provision of services. The 680-page report was tabled in Federal Parliament on 26 May 1997. Background Aboriginal organisations pushed for a national inquiry as early as 1990. The Secretariat of the National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) resolved at its national conference in 1992 to demand a national inquiry. Other state Aboriginal organisations were also active ...
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