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207 Barbara Hocking -a high court challenge?
Barbara Hocking: Is might right? An argument for the recognition of traditional Aboriginal title to land in the Australian courts.
With the single exception of Australia, all of England's ex-colonial countries have legally upheld the basic principle of recognition of the title of their indigenous people. The United States of America, Canada, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, including New Guinea and the African nations have all done so. Will Australia ever join with her fellow members of the British Commonwealth and uphold the customary traditional ownership of the indigenous Aboriginal people? Will the two states of Queensland and Western Australia remain the only places in the English-speaking common law world that continue to refuse to recognize the native title of those Aboriginals who are still the possessors from time immemorial of their traditional lands? Could a legal claim to this title succeed and would it be worth making?
(a) Milirrpum v. Nabalco Pty Ltd (1971) 17 FLR141. Referred to as Milirrpum.
(d) The operation of the Land Commissioner in the Northern Territory is at present limited to that State and to land not alienated by the Crown. He has no power to assess any compensation entitlement and only recommends or advises recognition of traditional ownership.
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(a) It seems to me that in Coe v. The Commonwealth (1979) 53 ALJR 403 the High Court is interested in the prospect of a test case on this question.
(b) Convention 107, in particular Articles 4 and 11. Article 4 provides that indigenous peoples 'should receive the same treatment as other members of the national population in relation to the ownership of underground wealth or preference rights in the development of such wealth.
Article 11 states that the 'right of ownership, collective or individual of the members of the populations concerned over the lands which these people traditionally occupy shall be recognised'; the intention being the indigenous people be guaranteed a full proprietary status on their ancestral 'land' including rivers, lakes and forests.
(d) See 'Does Aboriginal Law now run in Australia?' (1979) 10 Federal law Review 161 where this and the following points are dealt with by me in greater detail.
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the concepts of sovereignty and property the history of the legislation in partitular that of New `South Wales and Queensland in this area constitutional law English Canadian, New Zealand and American cases and legislation even as Chief Justice Marshall of the United States said the question of whether might is right (a) -the nature of justice.
To put it more bluntly are we a nation of thieves?
It has always been and still is both morally and legally indefensible to take the property of other people without their consent and without any form of compensation. Not only in international law but also in the common law there are rules to this effect that recognize and protect property rights. Indeed the English common law has been criticised for regarding rights of property as of greater moment than those of the individual - 'as sacred as the fee simple' is a commonly used phrase.
(b) In Re Southern Rhodesia  AC 211, 233-4 per Lord Sumner. Emphasis added.
(c)  AC 211. The rights referred to were of native title.
(d) (1971) 17 FLR 141.
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In my opinion, Blackburn J failed to draw these three vital distinctions and thus adversely affected the way the plaintiffs' case in Milirrpum was pleaded. He had earlier given leave for the plaintiffs to deliver a fresh statement of claim but at the same time he imposed a particular structure of argument upon them that made it almost impossible for the plaintiffs to succeed. (b) In both the interlocutory proceedings and in his final judgment he confused pre-existing rights that could be categorised as property (3), with private proprietary rights created by the Crown after the acquisition of sovereignty (2) and with the radical title of the Crown (1). Pre-existing rights grounded in native title (3) of course can never be private proprietary rights as in (2).
(a) In Re southern Rhodesia  AC 211, 233-4 per Lord Sumner. See too note, p.220.
(b) Mathaman v Nabalco Pty Ltd (1969) 14 FLR 10. The pleadings are absolutely vital and must be properly drawn. To be fair to Blackburn J, his requirements would have been based on the arguments already placed before him.
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beware of the 'tendency, operating at times unconsciously, to render that title (the native title to land) conceptually in terms which are appropriate only to systems which have grown up under English law.' (a) At least as far as the part of a case involving a claim to native title is concerned, traditional Aboriginal ownership would property now to be held to be matter of property.
The proof of its existence however could raise problems. Here again Blackburn J imposed an impossible burden on the plaintiffs in Milirrpum and this would have to be overcome by legal argument in support of a less onerous evidentiary requirement.
In Australia, a claim to native title must successfully argue that by the exclusion of areas reserved for the use and benefit of the Aboriginal people from tho operation of the original Waste Lands Acts in NSW and Queensland, the native title or traditional Aboriginal ownership of these areas was intended by the Crown - as it was in Canada and the U.S.A. - to be respected, not confiscated and that, since there has been no express expropriatory legislation, where such reserved areas had been and still are occupied by their traditional Aboriginal or Islander owners undisturbed in their customary possession, then the native title has not yet been extinguished; that the conduct of the Crown indicates that it has either already exercised its right of pre-emption (b) in favour of recognition or has still to do so.
(a) Id. 402-403. 'The title ... may be that of a community'.
(c) Since the passage of the 1967 referendum to the Constitution that gave the Commonwealth power to legislate for Aboriginals.
(d) Calder v. A-G of British Columbia (1973) 34 DLR (3d) 145. Referred to as Calder's case.
(e) Baker Lake v. Min. of Indian Affairs  1 FCR 518. Referred to as the Baker Lake case.
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cases for which he is so highly regarded. (a) It would also be necessary to rely on the decision of the Privy Council in Re Southern Rhodesia (b) where, in that conquered colony, the fact that the indigenous people concerned had been driven from their tribal lands was held to be conduct of the Crown that indicated an intention not to respect any native title.
(a) Johnson v. M'Intosh (1823) 8 Wheat 543; Worcester v. Georgia (1832) 6 Pet 515.
(d) St Catherine's Milling and Lumbar Co. v The Queen (1887) 13 SCR 577, 608-9 per Strong J (later CJC). Affirmed in the Privy Council (1888) LR 14 App Cas 46. This part of Canada was both a conquered and ceded colony. Neither in the American nor in the Canadian cases however is any significance attached to the difference between a settled, ceded and conquered colony on this point, partly because either the common law was introduced at the time of settlement or it became the law of the land soon after the acquisition of sovereignty by conquest or cession and partly because there was no effective difference between the two concerning the recognition of pre-existing native titles.
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owners by new settlers to the colony and it was universally imposed in all English colonies. (a) By the rules of the common law, sovereignty and the ultimate radical title are in tho Crown which grants private proprietary rights that stem from this root of title. By the rules of the common law, all 'ownership' stems only from the Crown, and property titles can not be original in their creation after the common law has been introduced. Such a feudal doctrine did not apply to colonial powers that imported civil law to their colonies and it was Marshall CJ who provided the analysis that enabled the pre-existing and originally acquired root of native title to operate as a possessory right on the radical title of the English Crown. By virtue of the operation of the doctrines of the common law regarding the acquisition of title to land, it was not possible for the English Crown to pass on any private proprietary title until after the native title had been lawfully acquired or extinguished.
it led to a great deal of trouble in New Zealand land dealings and the New Zealand cases must be applied with this in mind. Here too Blackburn J completely misunderstood the operation of the rule contended for, and regarded the inability to alienate (either to other people or within the Aboriginal community itself) as an indication that the native title was not a matter of property. On the one hand, native titles are quite commonly inalienable within the community and, on the other hand, the inalienability of native title to anyone other than the English Crown is an influential part of the common law theory of the feudal origin of private property titles and clearly indicates that native title is a property right.
(a) It led to a great deal of trouble in New Zealand land dealings and the New Zealand cases must be applied with this in mind. Here too Blackburn J completely misunderstood the operation of the rule contended for, and regarded the inability to alienate (either to other people or within the Aboriginal community itself) as an indication that the native title was not a matter of property. On the one hand, native titles are quite commonly inalienable within the community and, on the other hand, the inalienability of native title to anyone other than the English Crown is an essential part of the common law theory of the feudal origin or private property titles and clearly indicates that native title is a property right.
(b) (1823) 8 Wheat 543.
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The long line of cases must all be relied on to support the argument that these rules were part of the common law itself at the time it became the law in Canada, the U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand. It cannot be said to be clear whether or not some express statutory form of expropriation or of recognition was required. If it too were held to be a necessary element in the recognition of native title by the Crown, it is submitted that in Australia there is now a statute in which traditional Aboriginal ownership has been respected. (c) It is a federal Act and when it was passed it applied to a Commonwealth territory; a territory that is now a State. It is argued that this is the express statutory provision without which Blackburn J held in Milirrpum (d) that a doctrine of native title had no place in a settled colony.
It can also be argued that the traditional Aboriginal ownership still to be found in parts of Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia, upon which a claim for recognition would be based, has not yet been either recognized or extinguished by the Commonwealth government which, as has been pointed out, now has the right of preemption of native title. Since there has been express recognition of traditional Aboriginal ownership in the Northern Territory, then clearly it was still in existence and had not been expropriated. On the contrary, the continued reservation for the use and enjoyment of Aborigines of areas where traditional owners remained in undisturbed possession has become, since the passage of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth) part of the confirmation of native title culminating in its grant as a proprietary right. The conduct of the Crown has indicated an intention to uphold the pre-existing native title.
(c) The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth).
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(b) Tau v. The Commonwealth (1969) 44 ALJR 25. Thhis case has been criticised (1970) 44 ALJ 171.
(e) Ibid. That is of course only if there is any traditional Aboriginal ownership still unextinguished in some Australian states.
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State, not the Federal government, that then becomes the owner of the unencumbered land.
Until such time as the Commonwealth did decide by express legislation not to allow traditional Aboriginal ownership to continue, it is my contention that State government may not have the power to legislate concerning such land if that legislation infringed the rights of traditional Aboriginal owners, rights that have either been upheld by the Commonwealth or are awaiting the Commonwealth's exercise of its right of pre-emption.
Cooper v. Stuart  14 AC 286, 291 per Lord Watson. See the brief outline of the position in English law in Barbara Hocking, op. clt., 161-164. In a settled colony the members of an indigenous population automatically become British subjects whereas this is not the case in a conquered colony.
(a) Cooper v. Stuart  14 AC 286, 291 per Lord Watson. See the brief outline of the position in English law in Barbara Hocking, op. Cit., 161-164. In a settled colony the members of an indigenous population automatically become British subjects whereas this is not the case in a conquered colony.
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Spain of course is a civil law country and had also claimed title to parts of what became the USA some centuries earlier.
(a) In the Status of Eastern Greenland case (1933) PC 1 J. Rep Ser A/R No 53 at p 47, the Permanent Court of International Justice regarded as terra nullius any territory inhabited by 'backward' peoples whose political organisations did not correspond to Western norms. Thus it followed that such territories vested automatically in the first 'civilised' power that chose to occupy them. But this case involved a dispute between Norway, who in 1933 claimed sovereignty over eastern Greenland, and Denmark, who had governed the whole territory since 1814. It is therefore an example of the operation of the rule of first discovery and settlement spelt out by Marshall CJ and does not conflict with the opinion later given in the Western Sahara case ICJ Rep (1975).
(b) ICJ Rep (1975), p 6.
(c) Id. 39 Emphasis added.
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America ... was inhabited by a distinct people, divided into separate nations, independent of each other and of the rest of the world, having institutions of their own, and governing themselves by their own laws.... (It was) ... in possession of a people ... whose general employment was war, hunting and fishing.
Because Marshall CJ found that most of the U.S.A. was not uninhabited terra nullius, he had to regard the English Crown's radical title as derivative, not original, and for it to be lawfully acquired under the rules of international law as well as of the common law there had to be a cession by the previous occupants.
(a) (1832) 6 Peters 515, 542-4. Emphasis added.
(b) Coe v. Commonwealth of Australia (1979) 53 ALJR 403, 408 per Gibbs J.
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or as occupants by virtue of a discovery made before the memory of man.'. As another judge has commented, 'Something more than sovereign grace prompted the obvious regard given to original Indian title.' The judgment in that case was based squarely on the recognition by the court of 'original Indian title' founded on their previous possession of the land. It was held that 'the Indians have a cause of action for compensation arising out of an involuntary taking of lands held by original Indian title.
(a) (1832) 6 Peters 515, 542-4 per Marshall CJ.
(c) Calder v. A-G of British Columbia (1973) 34 DLR (3d) 145, 195 per Hall J quoting Marshall CJ already set out in full above, p 213. Emphasis added.
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That is in possession of its own territory, (a) and whenever customary traditional land tenure is destroyed, so too is the social structure that was based upon it. In Australia, because of the unique spiritual element present in the Aboriginal systems of law and land tenure, the result of dispossession is that the system of law can no longer operate.
(g) that it did not conflict with another rule accepted as having obligatory force.
Derham, 'Law and custom in the australian Territory of Papua and New Guinea', 30 University of Chicago Law review (1963) 495, 500. See, too, Hanasiki v. O.J. Symes (1951) Solomon Islands (unreported), a judgement of Charles J, wherein the common law rules for upholding customary law and title were applied in a protectorate before their statutory recognition, reprinted in Hocking, op. Cit., footnote a, p.221. Appendix B; Tito v. Waddell (No 2)  2 WLR 496.
(b) cf. the judgements of Lord Mansfield in R. v. Vaughan (1769) 4 Burr 2495; 98 ER 308 and Campbell v. Hall (1774) 1 Cowp Rep 204; 98 ER 1045 with that of Holt CJ in Blankard v. Galdy (1693) 2 Salk 411; 91 ER 356.
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the first European nation to discover and settle an area already inhabited by non-European natives acquired a title upon which the original occupants had a recognized and protected right of possession. (a) This 'better right to possess' was not equated by the courts with a 'might is right' attitude unless the facts had outstripped the adjudication because 'humanity demands and a wise policy requires, that the rights of the conquered to property should remain unimpaired. (b) Although the policies adopted by the European nations towards their native people attempted to observe these principles, it was common for the home government of a new colony established in previously inhabited territories to be unable to establish law and order in frontier 'colonial' areas until the movement of populations had become stabilised.
Local courts recognized such legal 'facts of life' lay superimposing the common law rules that transfer title onto those principles of international law that recognized both the original title established by immemorial possession, and the sovereignty gained by discovery.
(a) Hocking, Native Title Land rights (LL.M. Thesis, Monash University, 1970) Chapters 2 and 3.
(b) Johnson v. M'Intosh (1823) 8 Wheat 543, 589 per Marshall CJ.
(c) Cohen (ed.), The Legal Conscience (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1960), p 164.
(d) Cohen, 'Dialogue on Private Property' (1954) 9 Rutgers Law Review 357, 383.
(e) Derham, 'Theories of Legal Personality' in Webb (ed.) Legal Personality and Political Pluralism (Melb. Univ. Press, 1958), p 12.
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That state an existing fact situation that is part of the system's social structure, but unavoidably affect the future balance of both facts and social structures by the judgment made - that it becomes a part of their proper function for courts, particularly federal ones, to take judicial notice of considerations that would otherwise be 'extra-legal.' In Australia there are still some areas where, in the absence of decisive political action, the High Court, in its role as the legal balance of our society, may have to 'do this duty, however unpleasant',. and determine what is the position with regard to remaining Aboriginal possession and formulate the nature of any property ownership that is created by that possession. In this way it will be possible to accord ethical arguments their proper place and influence, alongside those other more practical factors that help to create the recognition of original native titles by the colonial powers of Europe, for all of these legal considerations were the 'stuff' of the policies upon which the judgments of the Privy Council and the Supreme Courts of Canada and the USA were based.
They may play a part in determining whether surviving traditional Aboriginal owners are held by the High Court to have 'a just and a legal claim' to their Australian lands.
'Is might right? An argument for the recognition of traditional Aboriginal title to land in the Australian courts', paper presented by Barbara Hocking at the Townsville Conference, 1981.

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