Great Australian Dissents

This book identifies, analyses and celebrates the significant and influential dissenting judicial opinions in Australian legal history.

This book considers the great judicial dissents in Australian law, explaining why these minority opinions remain significant, while so many are immediately forgotten. It is valuable to anyone studying or working in the law or who is interested in understanding the way that disagreement features in how multimember courts decide cases.When judges disagree, those in the minority write a dissenting opinion. This book considers the great dissents in Australian law. Their worth may derive from numerous factors, including their rhetorical force as a piece of legal reasoning or emotive power as a judicial lament for the 'error' into which the majority has fallen; the general importance of the issue at stake; as a challenge to the orthodoxy; and, sometimes, the subsequent recognition of a dissenting opinion's correctness and its ultimate vindication. On some occasions, all these features may be strongly present, on others only some. Through a diverse selection of memorable dissenting opinions, this book illuminates the topic of judicial disagreement more generally - not only through examples of instances when minority opinions have been distinctly valuable, but by drawing out a richer understanding of the attributes and circumstances which lead some dissents to become iconic, while so many lie forgotten.