UNE Law School lecturer, Marcelle Burns, has recently published a chapter in an exciting new book– Indigenous Legal Judgements: Bringing Indigenous Voices into Judicial Decision Making (edited by Nicole Watson and Heather Douglas, Routledge 2021). This book is a collection of key legal decisions affecting Indigenous Australians, which have been re-imagined to be inclusive of Indigenous people’s stories, historical experience, perspectives and worldviews.

Marcelle Burns, UNE Law Lecturer

Marcelle’s contribution to the collection is the re-writing of the High Court’s decision in the seminal native title case – Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Community v State of Victoria (2002) 214 CLR 422. In this case, the High Court required native title claimants to prove their traditional laws and customs have continued substantially uninterrupted from the time of colonisation to the present, arguably setting the bar too high for recognition of native title. Unfortunately for the Yorta Yorta people’s, the High Court found that the ‘tide of history’ had washed away any meaningful acknowledgement of their traditional laws and customs, and therefore the basis of their native title had been ‘lost’. The re-written judgement takes an Indigenous standpoint to show how the Yorta Yorta people’s custodial ethic and efforts to care for Country shows the continuation of their traditional laws and customs and thus prove their native title.

This important collection aims to challenge and influence judicial decision making into the future, leading to stronger recognition and more equitable outcomes for First Peoples. For more information, you can purchase the book or view it online at UNE’s Library.