Gove land rights case
Overview
Richard Blackburn
Sir Richard Arthur Blackburn OBE was a judge, prominent legal academic and former military officer in Australia. He became a judge of three separate courts in Australia, and eventually became chief justice of the Australian Capital Territory. In the 1970s he decided one of Australia's earliest...
ruled against the claimants on a number of issues of law and fact, rejecting the doctrine of aboriginal title
Aboriginal title
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism...
in favor of terra nullius
Terra nullius
Terra nullius is a Latin expression deriving from Roman law meaning "land belonging to no one" , which is used in international law to describe territory which has never been subject to the sovereignty of any state, or over which any prior sovereign has expressly or implicitly relinquished...
.
Although Milirrpum was not appealed beyond the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory
Supreme Court of the Northern Territory
The Supreme Court of the Northern Territory is the superior court for the Australian Territory of the Northern Territory. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the territory in civil matters, and hears the most serious criminal matters...
, it was overruled by the High Court of Australia
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
two decades later in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992).
Blackburn, in a confidential memorandum to the government and opposition, opined that a system of Aboriginal land rights was "morally right and socially expedient".
