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Eddie Mabo V Queensland (No.2)Eddie Mabo & Ors v The State of Queensland (No.2) (commonly known as Mabo) is a landmark Australian court case which was decided by the High Court of Australia on June 3, 1992. The effective result of this judgement was to invalidate the declaration of terra nullius, or "empty land" which had been pronounced at the time of British colonisation in 1788, and to recognise a form of native title. Although Mabo was litigated within the legal context of property law, the decisions clearly had much wider implications which have still to be determined. There is no doubt that it was a decision that shifted the political, legal and social landscape of Australia. The case The action which brought about the decision had been led by Eddie Mabo of the Meriam people (from the Murray Islands of the Torres Strait). He and other Murray Islanders commenced proceedings in the High Court in 1982, in response to the Queensland Amendment Act 1982 establishing a system of making land grants on trust for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, which the Murray Islanders refused to accept. The action was brough as a test case to determine the legal rights of the Meriam people to land on the islands of Mer (Murray Islan), Dauar and Waier in the Torres Strait, which were annexed to the state of Queensland in 1879. Prior to European contact the Meriam people had lived on the islands in a subsistence economy based on gardening and fishing. Land on the islands was not subject of pubic or general community ownership, but was regarded as belonging to individuals or groups. Plaintiff's arguments The plaintiff argued for a possessory title by reason of long possession. The decision Rejection of terra nullius The decision recognised that the indigenous population had a pre-existing system of law, which, along with all rights subsisting thereunder, would remain in force under the new sovereign except where specifically modified or extinguished by legislative or executive action. The Court purported to achieve all this without altering the traditional assumption that the Australian land mass was "settled". Instead, the rules for a "settled" colony were said to be assimilated to the rules for a "conquered" colony. Repudiation of absolute crown ownership The majority in Mabo also rejected the proposition that immediately upon the acquisition of sovereignty, full legal and beneficial ownership of all the lands of the Colony vested in the Crown. In other cases, including Australia, the new property law which the British Crown brought with it for British settlers presupposed that property interests were to be held on tenure from the Crown. Fragmentation of proprietary interests Toohey J made the argument that common law possessory title could form the basis for native title claims by indigenous Australians. Consequences In response to the Mabo judgment and to the subsequent and potential reactions, the Australian Federal Parliament (then controlled by the Labor Party led by Paul Keating) enacted the Native Title Act 1993. This was amended in 1998 following the 1996 Wik Decision. See also External links
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