Behrendt, Jason --- "Regina v Archie Glass" [1993] AboriginalLawB 36; (1993) 3(63) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 18

• Regina V Archie Glass

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Regina v Archie Glass

Supreme Court of New South Wales - Criminal Division

Sulley J

22 January, 1993, Unreported.

by Jason Behrendt

This case involved an application for bail by an Aboriginal man charged with a series of serious offences including assault and robbery of elderly people. He had previously been bailed with regard to other offences for which he was still awaiting trial. Sulley J did not hesitate in refusing bail.

During the course of the hearing the applicant challenged the jurisdiction of the Court, relying on the High Court's rejection of the doctrine of terra nullius in Mabo v Queensland (No. 2.) [1992] HCA 23; (1992) 175 CLR 1. In response, Sulley J made the following observation:

"It is apparent from what the applicant has said in support of that challenge that he is misinformed as a good many other people seem to be about what exactly the High Court has held in the Mabo case and about what exactly are the limits of the consequences that are entailed by that decision. I think that it needs to be said very plainly indeed that it would be a very great mistake for anybody in the position of this applicant to run away with the idea that the Mabo decision, taken at its highest point, entails somehow that there has been introduced into this country a differential system of law which creates classes of citizen to some of whom the law applies and to some of whom it does not apply. It is greatly to be hoped that politicians, some judges, academics, journalists and people of the kind understand before they speak the mischief that is likely to be caused in society by the promotion of the idea that the Mabo decision has somehow created classes of citizen to some of whom the ordinary laws of the land, and the duties and responsibilities inherent in them, do not apply. That is not the case, and it is time to say it plainly and clearly. Generalised appeals to the Mabo decision, to terra nullius, to undeclared states of war, to customary and tribal law and practice, to something said by Mr. Justice Rath decades ago and, to the International Court of justice at the Hague, will not sway this Court, and I hope will not sway any other Court, from the principles that all are equal before the law and that the law applies equally to all."(pp.34)