#ITC27: Claire Gibbs on Love and Thoms

Daniel Love and Brendan Thoms moved to Australia when small children. Each of them had an Aboriginal parent. They never, though, became Australian citizens. When they faced visa cancellation because of their criminal offending, the High Court had to the deal with the question: could an indigenous Australian be treated as an ‘alien’, and removed?

#ITC26: Peter Gordon on Rolah McCabe’s case

Rolah McCabe had terminal lung cancer when she brought proceedings against British American Tobacco, in 2001. She did not live to see the conclusion of the case, which soon turned into a fiercely litigated dispute about document destruction by the company.

#ITC25: Laurie Levy on Levy v Victoria

From the mid-1980s, Laurie Levy waged a campaign against duck shooting. In the early to mid-1990s, the High Court began to expand on the notion of an implied freedom of political communication. In 1994, Laurie Levy was charged with unlawful entry into a duck hunting area, and his campaign and the implied freedom collided in the High Court.

#ITC24: Sue Hackney, Jim McKenna and Rufus Black on Cobaw (part 2)

In 2007, Cobaw Community Health Services tried to book a camp on Phillip Island for a weekend forum, for a group of young people identifying as same sex attracted. The camp manager said they wouldn’t be welcome, because of the religious convictions of the Christian Brethren, which owned and ran the camp. The young people made a successful discrimination claim, and the camp’s appeal to the Court of Appeal failed. The case raised basic questions about religious exemptions to anti-discrimination law which remain centrally important, and continue to be hotly contested.

#ITC23: Sue Hackney, Jim McKenna and Rufus Black on Cobaw (part 1)

In June 2007, a staff member at Cobaw Community Health Services, Sue Hackney, tried to book a camp on Phillip Island for a weekend forum. She was booking on behalf of a group of young people identifying as same sex attracted. The camp manager said they wouldn’t be welcome, because of the religious convictions of the Christian Brethren, which owned and ran the camp. The young people, and Cobaw, brought a complaint which ventilated one of the most significant issues in Australian public life: when should religious beliefs provide an exemption from anti-discrimination law?

#ITC22: Denis Nelthorpe on the HFC credit licensing case

Consumer credit practices in Victoria were not scrutinised closely until the 1980s, when the Consumer Credit Legal Service challenged the renewal of one credit provider’s licence to operate. The case was part of a movement which exposed the questionable practices of credit providers, and improved the rights of consumers. The settlement of the case led to the creation of the Consumer Law Centre Victoria, and ultimately to the creation of the Consumer Action Law Centre.

#ITC21: Stuart Webb on Nystrom

Stefan Nystrom was born in Sweden, when his mother, an Australian permanent resident, was on holiday visiting her family in Scandinavia. He returned to Australia at when he was 27 days old. He lived his life in Australia, not knowing he was not a citizen, until his visa was cancelled because of his serious criminal record, and he faced removal. His case paved the way for the increased use of the Minister for Immigration’s ‘character cancellation’ power. Stuart Webb represented him on his journey through the Australian courts.

#ITC20: Penny Cula-Reid on challenging discrimination in football

Penny Cula-Reid’s remarkable journey has included involvement as a player in the inaugural season of AFLW football, and this year, success as a coach, winning the VFLW with Collingwood. Her passion for football is abundantly clear. In 2003, when she was 15, she showed her equal passion for justice, bringing a challenge to a rule banning girls over 12 from playing junior football.

#ITC19: Corinna Horvath and Dyson Hore-Lacy SC on Horvath

In March 1996, police raided Corinna Horvath’s home without a warrant. She spent several days in hospital as a result of the raid. She pursued a claim against the police officers involved, and against the State of Victoria. The dispute lasted more than 20 years, through a County Court trial, an appeal, and a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee. It lead to fundamental change in litigating claims of police misconduct.

#ITC18: Alina Leikin on the ‘Certain Children’ cases

In late 2016, following a riot at a juvenile detention facility in Parkville, the Victorian government sought to convert a unit at the maximum security Barwon Prison into an alternative youth justice facility. The resulting court challenges tested fundamental questions as to the application of human rights law in Victoria. Alina Leikin, then at the Human Rights Law Centre, was centrally involved in the litigation.

#ITC17: Felicity Graham on Bugmy

The question of how the criminal law ought deal with socioeconomic disadvantage, and in particular the disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal people, is one of the most challenging in sentencing law in Australia. In Bugmy, the High Court looked at these key issues, and articulated key principles about how sentences should be imposed in Australia. Felicity Graham represented William Bugmy, a man from Western NSW whose case raised these fundamental questions, and whose case has shaped Australian jurisprudence about them.