High Court

Although the High Court of Australia was established in 1901 by Section 71 of the Constitution, the appointment of the first Bench had to await the passage of the Judiciary Act in 1903. The first sitting of the High Court took place in the Banco Court of the Supreme Court building in Melbourne on 6 October 1903. It was a distinguished Bench, compri... sing three people who had been prominent in the Federal movement. They were: The Chief Justice, Sir Samuel Griffith, former Premier and former Chief Justice of Queensland. Sir Edmund Barton, the first Prime Minister of Australia and Leader of the Constitutional Conventions which led to Australia becoming a Federation in 1901. Richard Edward O'Connor, a former Minister of Justice and Solicitor-General of New South Wales and the first Leader of the Government in the Senate. There was an opinion held by many at the time that the High Court would prove to be a redundant tribunal, with little work to do and no real status. However, the initial Bench quickly set about proving wrong these prophecies. From their first judgments, the Justices stamped the authority of the High Court over the State Supreme Courts and showed that the Court was a powerful and necessary arm of the newly-created Commonwealth of Australia. Using their own construct of the Constitution and the Judiciary Act, they took upon themselves a wide appellate jurisdiction, thereby increasing significantly the workload of the Court. The Court quickly gained an international reputation for judicial excellence. Such was its success that the workload quickly became too much for three Justices. In 1906, the Justices made representations to parliament for an increase in their number. Later that same year, two more Justices were appointed - Sir Isaac Isaacs and Henry Bournes Higgins. In November 1912 Justice O'Connor died in office. At the same time, the workload of the High Court had grown to the extent that it was stretching the capacity of five Justices, so Parliament agreed to again increase the Bench by two. ...Read More