This Blog

The Melbourne Law School High Court Blog aims to provide a public forum for discussion of the judicial decisions of the High Court of Australia.

This blog will provide commentary on and analysis of recent High Court decisions, general information about the Court, as well as marking significant activities and events at the Court. It is a forum for discussion of decisions of the Court and a resource for understanding the operation of the Court.

Reflecting on what the Court does, achieves and produces, this Blog will:

  • Highlight and contextualise the very important legal developments of the Court by alerting readers to new cases, explain their meaning and their legal and social implications.
  • Distill the Court’s interpretation of laws and identify changes to the law brought about by the Court’s decisions.
  • Provide comment on the trends evident in the Court, particularly as its composition or leadership changes. It will celebrate the jurisprudence and achievement of judges.
  • Provide a comprehensive resource bank for each matter heard by the Court – including pleadings, transcripts, historical legal information and key dates.
  • Introduce to the wider community the expertise of Melbourne Law School scholars, who are trained in legal analysis skills, and are eager to share their understanding of and opinions about the complex and often long judgments made by Justices of the Court. They will draw together multiple views and contrast competing judicial opinions, foreshadow issues that the Court might next want to grapple, and leave readers better informed about the Court and the law it interprets and changes.

‘Opinion Posts’ are written by faculty, alumni and friends of the Melbourne Law School with expertise in the subject matter of each case.

‘Case Pages’ contain up-to-date news information on pending and decided cases, links to case resources and opinion posts. Every matter the Court decides to hear will have its own Case Page.

‘Feature Posts’ will mark significant activities and events at the Court.

‘News Posts’ are short updates on a wide range of current affairs issues relevant to the High Court and Australian law more generally.

Finally, there is additional information about the High Court, legal terms, and links to other blogs.

Terms of Use – Comments Policy
All readers will have the opportunity to respond to Opinion Posts by leaving a comment. We encourage academics, practitioners, students and members of the public to engage with our posts.

Comments and questions from readers are welcome. The Editors will not approve any comment they deem to be inflammatory, offensive or irrelevant. The Editors will remove any comment that they think has caused offense after it is posted.

Copyright
This web site and its contents are subject to copyright under the laws of Australia and, through international treaties, other countries. The copyright in materials on this site and in this web site as a whole is owned by The University of Melbourne. The copyright in some materials incorporated within this web site is owned by third parties.  Please refer to the University of Melbourne’s Copyright Statement for further information.

Reprint Permission
All Opinion Posts, Case Pages, Feature Posts and News Posts on Opinions on High (together, “the Materials”) are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 Licence.

Summary of licence terms:
You are free:

  • to copy, distribute, display, and perform the Materials
  • to make derivative works of the Materials

under the following conditions:

  • Attribution. You must attribute the Materials in the manner specified below (see Attribution).
  • Noncommercial. You may not use the Materials for commercial purposes.

For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of the Materials. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Click here to read the full licence.

Attribution
The attribution required for any use of Material from Opinions on High must include a statement that it comes from Opinions on High and display the author’s name where possible. A link to the location at https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/opinionsonhigh/ must also be displayed. If the material is posted electronically, you must ensure the link is active and accurate. We have placed suggested AGLC3-compliant citations at the base of each post.

Disclaimer
This blog includes reportage and opinion. The reportage and opinions on this blog are for general information only and are not legal advice. Neither the presentation of such information nor your receipt of it will create a lawyer-client relationship.

The opinions expressed on this blog are the views of individual authors and are not the views of the Melbourne Law School or The University of Melbourne. The opinions are expressed honestly for the purpose of informing and encouraging public discussion.

This blog provides external links as a service to users of this blog. In providing an external link this blog and The University of Melbourne do not accept responsibility for or endorse the content or condition of any linked site.

This blog is not associated with or authorised by the High Court of Australia.