The Convergence of form and Function: Commentary on Dixon

In the very first decision reported in the Commonwealth Law Reports, Griffith CJ, Barton and O'Connor JJ mooted whether an appeal lay to the Court from a judgment given after the coming into force of the Constitution but before the coming into force of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth). The Constitution, from 1 January 1901, vested the judicial power of the Commonwealth in the High Court and made provision for the appellate and other jurisdiction of the Court. But only the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth), from 25 August 1903, 'actually constituted' the apparatus and the machinery of the Court; the appellate jurisdiction 'could not, of course, be exercised' before then. The question presented, 'one of difficulty and importance', ultimately did not need to be resolved because leave to appeal would be refused on other grounds in any event.3 Nonetheless, the Court articulated the reasons that supported each of the competing views of the operation of ss 71 and 73 of the Constitution. There was said to be much force in the contention that the jurisdiction of [the lower courts] was, from the first, intended to be subject to the right of appeal to the High Court, and that that right, being a right conferred by the Constitution itself upon suitors, could not be lost or taken away by mere inaction of the Parliament.