ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how historians and historical evidence are utilized by parties to litigation and how judges treat expert evidence provided by historians in Australian courtrooms. It examines the types of cases in which historical evidence might be drawn upon; the rules of civil procedure under which historical data can be received into evidence and current trends in the Australian superior courts as to how historians' work is treated. The primary subject area in which historians might be called by the litigating parties to offer expertise is in native title cases. Although historians are rarely engaged by litigating parties to be expert witnesses in Australia, it is worth observing that those historians who are engaged for this purpose are subject to the usual evidentiary rules that apply to other expert witnesses. The High Court has adverted to the possibility of referring to the works of historians in the course of judgment-writing since at least the 1950s.
