Sir Gerard Brennan: constrained compassion

About this episode

The episode discusses Sir Gerard Brennan's significant contributions to Australian law, particularly regarding indigenous rights.

Sir Gerard Brennan has been one of Australia’s most important barristers and judges since World War II. As a judge, he made many significant contributions to Australian jurisprudence. The most consequential of these was the leading judgment in the High Court’s decision in Mabo recognising the rights of occupation of Australia’s indigenous peoples. A few short years later in the Wik case, Brennan CJ dissented from the Court’s decision that native title had not been extinguished by grant...

Topics covered

• law
• jurisprudence
• indigenous rights
• Australian history
• judiciary

Keywords

• Sir Gerard Brennan
• Mabo decision
• Wik case
• native title
• High Court

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Australia

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