Mabo v. Queensland
High Court of Australia
107 A.L.R. 1 (1992)
Relevant factsFree
The Merriam people (plaintiffs), indigenous inhabitants of Australia's Murray Islands, sued to establish their legal rights to their traditional land after the Crown claimed that its 1879 declaration of sovereignty over the islands automatically extinguished any prior native title under older colonial doctrines treating indigenous land as terra nullius, or no one's land.
IssueFree
Whether a change in sovereign extinguishes native title to land.