Mabo in the courts

'Mabo in the Courts' is the story of a court case that is a landmark in Australian legal and political history. Narrated by an insider, a lawyer who acted for the plaintiffs, it is at once a memoir and a factual account of dramatic, long-drawn-out, unlikely legal proceedings. The author has also set it against his reflections on the culture and history of the Meriam people of the Torres Strait; his client Eddie Mabo's motivations and premature death; the cut-and-thrust of exchanges between contesting counsel, and between counsel and judges; the effects on the proceedings of political influence and pressure; and the legacy of the High Court's decision, twenty years on. The Mabo Case was a quest for justice by a group of Murray Islanders. In the history of the common law, scores of other cases dealing with Indigenous land rights have been heard in the courts of the former British Empire, and from the Indigenous perspective some were won, some were lost. Mabo, most importantly, was the first of such cases to succeed in Australia.