On 10 July 2020, Member Traves of the Queensland Civil Administrative Tribunal found that the Australian Christian College Moreton Ltd was engaging in both direct and indirect discrimination by proposing to exclude a prep student with long hair from continuing to be enrolled in and attend the school. The decision, Taniela v Australian Christian College...Read More

In the recent case of Love and Thoms v Commonwealth [2020] HCA 3, in powerful judgments reminiscent of Mabo v Queensland (No 2), four judges of the High Court declared that Indigenous Australians can never be ‘aliens’ for the purposes of s 51(xix) of the Australian Constitution. In strong dissents, three judges refused to introduce a race-based distinction...Read More

In March 2020, the High Court changed the law concerning when a person is an “officer” of a corporation for the purposes of s.9 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). Until the decision in Australian Securities and Investments Commission v King [2020] HCA 4, (King) intermediate appellate courts had held that in order for a...Read More

The fascinating and compelling decision in Vedanta Resources PLC v Lungowe [2019] UKSC 20, delivered 10 April 2019, involved a procedural dispute over whether litigation relating to pollution in Zambia could be tried in the English Courts. The judgment is significant for multinational UK parent companies with operating companies in the most underdeveloped countries, but...Read More

On Friday, 5 June 2020, the High Court granted special leave to appeal to a landholder group, Oakey Coal Action Alliance Inc (OCCA), against a decision of the Queensland Court of Appeal. The grant of special leave is the latest step in long running litigation concerning applications by New Acland Coal Pty Ltd for an...Read More

Last week saw the launch of an important research report throwing light on the circumstances in which the death penalty is imposed in Malaysia. The report comes at an important time with Malaysia’s first non Barisan Nasional government since independence in 1957 collapsing after less than two years in government. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had...Read More

Justice Mortimer of the Federal Court of Australia today handed down a 359 page judgment concluding that Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum Inc (“Friends”) had proved its pleaded case in litigation under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) (“the EPBC Act”) against VicForests, the Victorian government agency entrusted with the management of Victoria’s...Read More

A 92 page report on Legal Perspectives on solitary confinement in Queensland has been launched by Prisoners Legal Service and the University of Queensland Law School. The report’s lead writers are Professor Tamara Walsh of the Law School and Helen Blaber of Prisoners Legal service. They were assisted in the writing by Claudia Smith, Lucy...Read More

This is the second of two posts aiming to help Australian lawyers seeking admission to practice as foreign lawyers in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The first post provided an overview of the PNG legal system and its links to Australia. This (second) post provides resources for Australian lawyers sitting the PNG foreign lawyer exams. As...Read More

This is the first of two posts aiming to help Australian lawyers seeking admission to practice as foreign lawyers in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The first post provides an overview of the PNG legal system and its links to Australia. The second post provides resources for Australian lawyers sitting the PNG foreign lawyer exams. This...Read More