Former High Court chief justice Sir Gerard Brennan dead at 94

Sir Gerard Brennan, the former High Court chief justice who had a significant role in the Mabo Judgment, died overnight.

Sir Gerard Brennan, the former High Court chief justice who had a significant role in the Mabo Judgment, died overnight aged 94.

Sir Gerard Brennan, the former High Court chief justice who had a significant role in the Mabo Judgment, died overnight aged 94.

Sir Gerard joined the court in 1981 before being appointed by former prime minister Paul Keating as the 10th chief justice of Australia in 1995. He also served as the Administrative Appeals Tribunal’s first president.

Graduating from the University of Queensland, Sir Gerard went on to have a key role in landmark judgments on native title, rejecting the common law doctrine of terra nullius as offensive to “the values of justice and human rights … which are the aspirations of the contemporary Australian legal system”.

In a statement, the High Court of Australia said: “He was a model of judicial restraint. He was a man of deep humanity and was held in great esteem and affection by those who had the fortune to sit with him.

“The Justices of the Court extend their sympathies to Sir Gerard’s family. A ceremonial sitting of the Court to honour him will be held in the August sittings of the Court.”

Sir Gerard’s son, human rights lawyer and Jesuit priest Father Frank Brennan, said his father had “died peacefully at 11pm (on Wednesday night)”, the Australian Financial Review reported.

The former chief justice also formed part of the minority on the Wik decision in 1996, finding that pastoral leases surpassed native title.

Noel Pearson praises ‘revered judicial elder’

Cape York Institute founder Noel Pearson on Thursday honoured Sir Gerard for bringing Australia to the truth of its history and morality in his 1992 Mabo judgement.

Noel Pearson. Picture: Sean Davey

“Sir Gerard Brennan was one of Australia’s greatest jurists and most revered judicial elders. His passing is a great sadness, for his family’s loss, and gratitude, on the part of the country, for his service,” Mr Pearson said.

“The Mason High Court of which he was a leading member, and the court of which he was Chief Justice, were among the finest in the common law world. These were courts of the highest calibre, and no Australian student of the law could be prouder of them.”

Mr Pearson said Sir Gerard’s judgments in Koowarta, Mabo (No 1), Gerhardy v Brown, Tasmanian Dams and of course, Mabo (No 2), were justly famous and would endure for the ages.

“It is strangely fitting that he should pass on the eve of the 30th anniversary of his most astounding leading judgment in Mabo (No 2) – a magisterial tour de force of impeccable legal history and justice,” Mr Pearson said.

“When he delivered on 3 June 1992 those immortal lines that the dispossession of the Aborigines “underwrote the development of the nation” he not only brought the country to the truth of its history but its very morality.”