Today, the High Court issued its final judgment for 2015, number 53 in the media neutral citation list, one more than last year. Looking back over the Court’s judgments published on Austlii, these numbers are amongst the Court’s lowest. Out of the Court’s 113 years, there have been only fifteen with fewer than 53 (media neutral citation) judgments: 1903 (3), 1926 (52), 1928 (51), 1929 (46), 1930 (52), 1939 (41), 1940 (46), 1941 (43), 1942 (40), 1943 (50), 1944 (42), 1948 (50), 1983 (47), 2010 (49) and 2014 (52). The majority of these have ready explanations  – the Court’s truncated first year and the depression and war years – that the more recent years lack.

But such raw counts can easily mislead, as not all published judgments are equal. Continue reading →