#BREAKING In an historic 6-1 decision, the HCA found the @palaceletters should be released to the public following a 6 year legal battle fought by Professor Jenny Hocking for access to historical records about our political history & our #RightToKnow.
#auspol #auslaw
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#auspol #auslaw
Thread 👇
2. The Court decided the letters were Commonwealth records under the Archives Act, because they were the property of the Cth, namely the official establishment of the Governor-General & ordered that Archives reconsider Prof Hocking’s requests for access to the palace letters.
3. HCA held “with respect to the majority in the Full Court, we cannot see how the correspondence could appropriately be described, however "loosely", as "private or personal records of the Governor-General" even allowing for ambiguity of the description of "private or personal"
4. “The conclusion that the correspondence was the property of the official establishment of the Governor-General at the time of deposit with the Australian Archives is sufficient to lead to the ultimate conclusion...
5. ...that each item of the deposited correspondence was then a Commonwealth record, and remains a Commonwealth record in the care and management of the Archives.”
6. Edelman J: An assumption underlying the Archives Act is that a property right to institutional records is held by the Commonwealth. In other words, one assumption inherent in the expression "property of the Commonwealth or of a Commonwealth institution"...
7. ...is that a property right to those official records kept by the official establishment of the Governor-General, which is not a legal entity, will be a property right of the Commonwealth as a body politic.
8. Edelman J: More fundamentally than any factual overstatement, the legal flaw in the respondent's submission is that a person does not obtain a property right by thinking they have a property right or merely by them or others expressing that belief.
9. Gordon J: “...it does not matter if Sir John had some property interest in the correspondence or its contents – any such property interest was not inconsistent with the official establishment...
10. ...of the Governor-General having "property" in the letters as that term is used in the Archives Act.”
