Graw, Stephen --- "Preface" [2022] JCULawRw 1; (2022) 28 James Cook University Law Review i

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PREFACE

Each year the James Cook University Law Students’ Society and the Law discipline at JCU host a lecture commemorating the Law School’s Foundation Head, Mrs Marylyn Mayo, and invite a distinguished member of the legal community (broadly defined) to present it. It has also long been a tradition to publish each lecture in that year’s edition of the JCULR, both to ensure that it is accessible to a much wider audience and to ensure that it continues to be available in permanent form.

In 2022 the Mayo Lecture reached a significant milestone. It was delivered not only, and for the first time, by a JCU law graduate but by one who was taught by Marylyn.

It was delivered by his Honour Justice Lincoln Crowley who graduated from JCU in 1996 and who, on 13 June this year, was sworn in as a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland, becoming the 135^th justice, and the first JCU graduate, to serve on that Court. However, as his Honour notes in his lecture, ‘the more important number was that I again achieved another remarkable and historic first. I became the first ever Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person to be appointed as a judge of a superior court in Australia’.

JCU was honoured to have his Honour as this year’s Mayo lecturer and is grateful that he so generously provided a copy of his text for inclusion in this volume.

Co-incidentally, this volume also commemorates the 30^th anniversary of the High Court’s Mabo decision in which, for the first time, the Court recognised the existence of native title for all Indigenous people in Australia, finding, as it did so, that the doctrine of terra nullius should never have been applied. That ruling led, the following year, to passage of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth), giving formal legislative backing to that recognition.

In 2017, the 25^th anniversary year of the decision, volume 23 of the JCULR was devoted entirely to papers on that theme. That was in both recognition and celebration of that judicial landmark and of Eddie Koiki Mabo’s close connection with the University. In this, the 30^th anniversary year, Associate Professor Chis Davies continues that discussion, looking at how the Mabo decision continues to reverberate in North and Far North Queensland, by examining how native title claims in those parts of the State in the last 5 years have been determined.

This volume also continues the journal’s tradition of providing a forum for a wide range of law and law-related topics.

Professor Robin Woellner and Mr Michael Bersten examine recent developments in legal professional privilege and, in particular, the Australian Tax Office’s response to its concerns that taxpayers and their advisors may be manipulating privilege to block or delay investigations where there may be no realistic basis for claiming it. They also consider a possible role for the Australian Law Reform Commission’s 2008 recommendations in providing a legislative solution to the identified problems.

Bede Harris examines the current common law position (and rights) of those who intervene without specific authorisation to protect the interests of others. He identifies that it is gravely deficient, indeed ‘incoherent’, and proposes a new set of rules, based on the Roman law doctrine of negotiorum gestio (management of the affairs of another) to better balance the rights of both the intervenor and the person on whose behalf he or she acts.

Neil Dunbar and Chris Davies follow up their papers in last year’s volume on, respectively, the legal and practical issues surrounding the then suggestion that a breakaway ‘Super League’ could be formed in European football and the impact of COVID on sport post-2020. They do so by examining possible responses by UEFA to other ‘unforeseen disruptions’ to its matches and competitions. Based on the responses that UEFA adopted to deal with the COVID pandemic the paper examines how it might deal with the legal and practical challenges that could arise as the result of further pandemics, war, terrorism and the impact of climate change.

There are, in addition, two other comment pieces in this volume.

Vy Phan discusses the legal and ethical dilemmas facing dentists (and health care workers more broadly) when they are diagnosed with HIV. Her paper explores the concepts and principles of patient autonomy and, in particular, a patient’s right to know a dentist’s HIV status, the influences of non-maleficence and the concept of equal justice: what is fair for both the practitioner and the patient in relation to HIV disclosure.

Arieh Herszberg’s paper considers the issues surrounding live-streaming of civil trails in Victoria and posits a number of steps that might be taken to preclude possible problems and to better facilitate its adoption as a move towards more open justice.

Finally, Chris Davies’ case note examines the decision in Farriss v Axford, a negligence action brought by Tim Farriss a founding member of, and guitarist in, the band INXS, following injuries to his left hand which left him unable to play the guitar. While the action was not successful the decision provides useful guidance on how damages for economic loss might be assessed when a plaintiff is unable to pursue a previously successful music career because of a negligence-related injury.

As a closing note, the Editorial Board would also like to record, formally, our gratitude to all of the contributors to this, the 28^th volume of the JCULR. The varied subject areas covered are a testament to the wide diversity of legal and law-related scholarship in our community. We would also like to express our deepest thanks to all of our reviewers who gave so generously of their time and whose insightful comments provided our authors with such valuable guidance. We thank them all.

Emeritus Professor Stephen Graw

(for the Editorial Board)