The High Court of Australia

THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Every country obviously has a constitution and that constitution is governed by a system of laws which are abided by the people. The entity that ensures this is the courts. There is a hierarchy when it comes to courts since there cannot be just one type of court and there have to be many. This report will deal with the highest in the hierarchy which also runs by the term “court of final appeal” and undoubtedly the highest in Australia’s legal system. It is popularly known as the HIGH COURT. Every single decision made by the high court is considered final and is way above all other inferior courts. In fact, they’re so powerful that they can define issues about the constitution and various types of appeals which is in fact related to an approved jurisdiction of the constitution, even cases from other federal courts and between people hailing from different cities. The various aspects of the high court shall be discussed including cases and most importantly how the court enlarges its jurisdiction.

History of the High Court

The High court was formed in 1901 by Section 71 of the constitution which says the following:

“The judicial power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a Federal Supreme Court, to be called the High Court of Australia, and in such other federal courts as Parliament creates, and in such other courts as it invests with federal jurisdiction. The High Court shall consist of a Chief Justice, and so many other Justices, not less than two, as the Parliament prescribes.” (Duhaime & Company, n.d.)

The initial array of the very first Bench had to be ready for the Judiciary Act in 1903. The first session of the High Court was held in Melbourne on October 06th, 1903 at the Banco Court in the Supreme court complex (Duhaime & Company, n.d.). The Bench was known to all because it consisted of three men who were very well known back then. Sir Samuel Griffith who was the chief justice, Sir Edmund Barton – former Australian Prime Minister and leader of constitutional conventions which led the country to make it a Federation in the year 1901 and Richard Edward O’Connor who before this, was a Minister of Justice and Solicitor-General of New South Wales. During the first judgment of the courts, these Justices established the High Court’s authority over the Supreme Courts and stated that it is “an obligatory and influential support of the new formed Commonwealth of Australia”. Thereby using this newly formed constitution of theirs and the Judiciary Act, a widespread Appellate jurisdiction was brought about, where again the workload of the court was increased to a significant amount. The High Court’s start showed the sharing of a courtroom and registry facilities with the Supreme Court in Melbourne and Sydney. Of course, the High court, since it was the highest of the hierarchy could not do with this system of sharing with inferior courts, it was provided with its own separate facilities in 1923 and finally in 1928, a complex was built in Melbourne just for the High Court. This was of course temporary and the final building was built in Canberra. Construction of that building started in 1975 and it was finally opened by Her Majesty the Queen on the 26th of May 1980. The location of the Principle Registry was shifted to this place (History of the High Court, n.d.).

The constitution instituted the high court and the original court that consisted of three was protracted to seven and has been the same way since then. The High court was relocated for good to Canberra but even then it looks into cases of other places (Terry & Giugni, 2003: 70-71). The high court has many basic functions. The Federal Law stands out and is the ultimate entity in the Australian Legal system. So the high court has to interpret that and the constitution and protect rights of individuals. Since the constitution is the base and the fundamental aspect of the Law, the high court has to have the clearest knowledge and understanding of it since every decision made will be in accordance with the constitution. The court has to take into consideration heavily the rights of all Australian citizens. “When persons or group ask for a demand to be permitted in order to be treated in a particular manner by various individuals and organization, then it is named as the �right’ of that particular person.” (Terry & Giugni, 2003: 38). According to Hugh Emy and Owen Hughes, there are six different kinds of rights. There are social rights, political rights, economic rights, equality rights, civil rights and legal process rights. Political rights usually encompass the rights to vote, civil rights consist of “freedom of speech”,