'No higher duty': Mabo and the failure of legal foundation

Law and Critique

Volumn 13, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 233-252

  Fitzpatrick, Peter ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Failure; Foundation; Legal; Mabo

Indexed keywords

EID: 13844315689     PISSN: 09578536     EISSN: 15728617     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1021231902705     Document Type: Review

References (112)

1. M. Blanchot, The Writing of the Disaster trans. A. Smock (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 26.
2. Mabo v. The State of Queensland (No. 2) (1992) 175 C.L.R. 1.
3. I. Kant, Kant's Political Writings (The Metaphysics and Morals), trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 147 - his emphasis.
4. E. Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment trans. F.C.A. Koelln and J.P. Pettegrove (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), 65.
5. Kant, supra n. 3, at 147.
6. This is an unadventurous gloss on ibid., at 143-144.
7. Ibid., at 143 - his emphasis.
8. J-J. Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans. Maurice Cranston (London, Penguin, 1968).
9. For an acute extension of the idea of dispossession in this vein, see W. MacNeil, '"It's the vibe!": The Common Law Imaginary Down Under', in L. Moran et al. eds., Law's Moving Image (London: Cavendish, in press).
10. To borrow the phrase from von Hiering - see J. Stone, Legal System and Lawyers' Reasonings (London: Stevens & Sons, 1964), 226. My point, of course, is that the hold of such concepts is not confined to Hiering's other-worldly legal theorist.
11. See P. Goodrich, Oedipus Lex: Psychoanalysis, History, Law (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 26. Even more adroitly, Goodrich sets the antinomy impelling my account in terms of 'a mythology of origins or of the "origins" of common law which are mystical precisely because the human source of law can never be directly represented', yet, quoting Cixous, 'the definition of law can unfold only in relation to the question of the origin of law':
12. ibid., at 149.
13. G. Burgess, The Politics of the Ancient Constitution: An Introduction to English Political Thought, 1603-1642 (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 58-78.
14. W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 16th edn (London: T. Cadell and J. Butterworth & Son, 1825), 67-1.
15. J.G.A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Norton, 1967), 36.
16. See, e.g., Wik Peoples v. Queensland (1996) 187 C.L.R., 1, at 179-180, per Gummow J.
17. See G. Burgess supra n. 12, at 23.
18. J. Stone supra n. 10, at 237;
19. CD. Bowen, The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1956), 293.
20. See A.W.B. Simpson, Legal Theory and Legal History: Essays on the Common Law (London: Hambleton, 1978), 370-371, quoting and elaborating on Pollock.
21. G. Burgess, supra n. 12, at 21-22;
22. D. Lieberman, The Province of Legislation Determined: Legal Theory in Eighteenth-century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 90-91.
23. D. Lieberman, supra n. 19, at 239.
24. J. Stone, supra n. 10, at 238;
25. D. Lieberman, supra n. 19, at 44.
26. See L. Godden, "Wik: Legal Memory and History", Griffith Law Review 6 (1997), 122-143,
27. and 132 for examples of these and Goodrich, supra n. 11, at 26 and 80 for the natural and its connection to the immemorial.
28. The subsuming ability of reason here was not always as straightforward as this may suggest: cf. G. Burgess, supra n. 12, at 29-48.
29. J. Stone, supra n. 10, at 210.
30. See the invaluable account by L. Godden, supra n. 22, especially at 126, 131, 133.
31. See ibid., at 134, 141.
32. See, e.g., D.R. Kelley, Historians and the Law in Postrevolutionary France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 42-43.
33. See G. Burgess, supra n. 12, at 86 for the quotation.
34. See D. Lieberman, supra n. 19, at 91.
35. G. Poggi, The Development of the Modern State: A Sociological Introduction (London: Hutchinson, 1978), 73-74.
36. G. Prakash, "Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography", Comparative Studies in Society and History 32(2) (1990), 383-408, 389.
37. P. Goodrich, "Rhetoric and Somatics: Training the Body to do the Work of Law", Law.Text.Culture 5/2 (2001), 241-270, 261.
38. See G. Burgess supra n. 12, 52.
39. See P. Fitzpatrick, Modernism and the Grounds of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Part II.
40. G. Poggi, supra n. 30, 111.
41. For a typically extravagant statement of the case see Lord Denning, Freedom Under the Law (London: Stevens & Sons, 1949), 32.
42. R.A. Williams, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 59. There he uses the phrase to describe 'the colonizing discourse of Renaissance Spain'.
43. G. Poggi, supra n. 30, 93.
44. N. K. Blomley, Law, Space and the Geographies of Power (New York: The Guildford Press, 1994).
45. G. Poggi, supra n. 30, 101, 107.
46. J. Stone, Social Dimensions of Law and Justice (London, Stevens, 1966), 609, quoting Parsons, the emphasis being in the quotation.
47. C. Vismann, "Starting from Scratch: Concepts of Order in No Man's Land", in B. Hüppauf, ed., War, Violence and the Modern Condition, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1997)
48. ; C. Vismann, 'Formeln des Rechts - Befehle des Krieges. Notiz zu Kantorowicz' Aufsatz "Pro patria mori"', in W. Ernst, and C. Vismann, eds., Geschichtskörper: Zur Aktualität von Ernst H. Kantorowicz (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1998);
49. P. Fitzpatrick, The Mythology of Modern Law (London: Routledge, 1992), Chapter 3;
50. Fitzpatrick, supra n. 34, 91-107, 152-18 2.
51. See Vismann 1997 supra n. 41, 48.
52. Kant, supra n. 3, 147 - his emphasis. This is susceptible of some refinement in that he does draw a distinction which can be related to that between 'radical' and 'beneficial' title in Mabo considered later:
53. ibid., 147-148.
54. The point could be encapsulated in what was once an indistinction between 'own' and 'owe': see The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Owe I. I am grateful to Hans Mohr for alerting me to the point. Also, according to the same dictionary, there is a similar source for 'own', to hold as one's own, and 'own' as to acknowledge or grant that something is the case - see own verb. Skeat, however, derives the two senses somewhat differently: W. W. Skeat, A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (New York: Capricorn, 1963), 364.
55. R. Bartlett, "Mabo: Another Triumph for the Common Law", Sydney Law Review 15, (1993), 178-186.
56. Ibid., at 182.
57. J. Grbich, "The Scent of Colonialism: Mabo, Eucalyptus and Excursions within Legal Racism"', Australian Feminist Law Journal 15 (2001), 119-146 at 123-124.
58. Wik supra n. 15 at 182.
59. See ibid., 183-184 quoting Lord Wilberforce in Air Canada v. Secretary of State for Trade 1983 2 AC 394 at 438.
60. Coe v. The Commonwealth of Australia et al. (1979) 53 A.L.J.R. 403.
61. W.E. Connolly, Why I am Not a Secularist (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 30.
62. Pages numbers in the text, without more, refer to Mabo supra n. 2.
63. See, e.g., Barwick CJ in New South Wales v. The Commonwealth (1975) 135 C.L.R. 337 at 368
64. , and Gibbs J in Coe supra n. 50 at 408.
65. The phrase comes from Blackstone: see Mabo supra n. 2 at 33.
66. For an incisive analysis of the invocation of terra nullius in Mabo as chimera see D. Ritter, 'The "Rejection of Terra Nullius" in Mabo: A Critical Analysis', Sydney Law Review 18 (1996), 5-33.
67. C. Perrin, 'Approaching Anxiety: The Insistence of the Postcolonial in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples', in E. Darian-Smith and P. Fitzpatrick, eds., Laws of the Postcolonial (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 19-38;
68. P. Grimshaw, R. Reynolds and S. Swain, 'The Paradox of "Ultra-Democratic" Government: Indigenous Civil Rights in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand, Canada and Australia', in D. Kirby and C. Coleborne, eds., Law, History, Colonialism: The Reach of Empire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 78-90;
69. G. W. Gong, The Standard of 'Civilization' in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).
70. See, e.g., Ritter supra n. 55 at 23 and
71. G. Simpson, 'Mabo, International Law, Terra Nullius and the Stories of Settlement: An Unresolved Jurisprudence', Melbourne University Law Review 19 (1993), 195-210 at 207.
72. E. de Vattel, 'Emer de Vattel on the Occupation of Territory', in P.D. Curtin, ed., Imperialism (London: Macmillan, 1971) pp. 44-15.
73. See P. Rush, 'An Altered Jurisdiction: Corporeal Traces of Law', Griffith Law Review 6(1997), 144-168, at p. 165.
74. In New South Wales supra n. 52 at 388.
75. See Coe supra n. 50 at 410 per Jacobs J.
76. For the almost winning see Council of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Services 1985 A.C. 374. The seminal, and yet to be realized, decision here is of course the Case of Proclamations (1611) 12 Co Rep 74.
77. Placing this in the particular setting, there is Stephen J in New South Wales supra n. 53 at 438
78. : 'The prerogatives of the Crown were a part of the common law which the settlers brought with them on settlement'. Furthermore, and in the same setting, 'the crown had no prerogative right to override the common law by executive act': Commonwealth of Australia v. Yarmirr and Others (2001) 184 A.L.R. 113 at 128 per Gleeson CJ et al.
79. E.g. Campbell v. Hall 1774 98 E.R 1045;
80. Mostyn v. Fabrigas 1774 98 E.R. 1021.
81. See A.W. Bradley and K.D. Ewing, Constitutional and Administrative Law (13th edition) (London: Longman, 2003), 314-316.
82. R v. Wedge 1976 1 N.S.W.L.R. 581;
83. Yarmirr supra n. 62 at 129 per Gleeson CJ et al.
84. Yarmirr supra n. 62 at 132 per Gleeson CJ et al.
85. Mabo supra n. 2 at 54,
86. and see also 50. By the time of Yarmirr supra n. 62, it has become 'no more than a tool of analysis which reveals the nature of the rights and interests which the Crown obtained on its assertion of sovereignty over land': at 132 per Gleeson CJ et al.
87. See Western Australia v. Ward (2000) 170 A.L.R. 159 at 179-180.
88. See Yarmirr supra n. 62 at 130-131 per Gleeson C.J. et al..
89. R v. Toohey; ex parte Meneling station Pty Ltd (1982) 158 C.L.R. 327 at 358 per Brennan J.
90. Ward supra n. 68 at 191.
91. There is some judicial division between what is now a predominant view seeing native title as being 'recognized' and those who would see native title as created by the common law itself: see Ward supra n. 68 at 186-187.
92. As to such ways see, e.g., Yorta Yorta v. Victoria (2001) 180 A.L.R. 655;
93. and for the point generally see S. Motha, 'Mabo: Encountering the Epistemic Limit of the Recognition of "Difference"', Griffith Law Review 7/1 (1998), 79-96, and
94. P. Sutton, Aboriginal Country Groups and the 'Community of Native Title Holders' (Perth,WA: National Native Title Tribunal Occasional Papers Series, No. 1/2001), especially Parts 1 and 5.
95. Fragmentation can go further with some 'rights' involved in native title being recognized but not others. As to the 'absence of law' attributed to indigenous peoples, and considered earlier, see Mabo supra n. 2 at 36-42 per Brennan J.
96. Combining two phrases from Stone supra n. 10 at 339.
97. In Mabo supra n. 2 itself there is a creative engagement with the Canadian situation in the judgement of Toohey J. The resort to apt US authority is frequent all through the judgements of the majority even if this is not greatly elaborated on. For a more extended but compact comparative account see R.H. Bartlett, "Aboriginal Land Claims at Common Law", University of Western Australia Law Review 15 (1983), 293-346.
98. See J. Borrows, 'Sovereignty's Alchemy: An Analysis of Delgamuukw v. British Columbia', Osgoode Hall Law Journal 37/3 (1999), 537-596;
99. Fitzpatrick, Modernism supra n. 34 at 166-175.
100. Johnson v. M'Intosh (1823) 21 U.S. (8 Wheat.) 543.
101. Bartlett supra n. 45 at 182-183.
102. Bartlett also sees the case as one of the common law - see generally ibid.
103. All of which is somewhat strange when it is realized that there was no explicit reliance on the common law in the judgement. There the common law is mentioned once only in describing a source which is then rejected - Johnson supra n. 78 at 600.
104. B. Hocking, "Aboriginal Law Does Now Run In Australia", Sydney Law Review 15 (1993), 187-205 at 195.
105. Johnson supra n. 78 at 572;
106. also, another 'Indian case', Worcester v. Georgia (1832) 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 at 543 per Marshall CJ.
107. Johnson supra n. 78 at 572.
108. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) 30 U.S. (5Pet.) 1 at 52.
109. Johnson supra n. 78 at 569.
110. Ibid., at 590-591.
111. Cf. G. Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998).
112. G. Nettheim, 'Judicial Revolution or Cautious Correction?' Mabo v. Queensland' UNSW Law Journal 16/1 (1993), 1-26 at 2.