ABSTRACT
The High Court of Australia has become the subject of vitriolic and uninformed criticism. From the handling down of Wik Peoples v. Queensland2 on 23 December 1996, the High Court, under Chief Justice Sir Gerard Brennan, experienced perhaps its most difficult period since it was created in 1903. The judges were attacked as a 'pathetic ... self-appointed [group of] Kings and Queens', a group of 'basketweavers' and even the purveyors of 'intellectual dishonesty'.3 Less intemperate attacks on the High Court commonly charged that the Court had been' activist'. In this context, 'activist' acquired a pejorative connotation and became a label applied to 'meddling judges' who had strayed beyond their judicial responsibilities into the legislative field of value judgment and social and economic policy.
