Judicial Career
Richard Blackburn left academic life and was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory in 1966. During this time, he became President of the Arts Council of the Northern Territory. It was during his judicial life in the Northern Territory that he decided the first significant case concerning Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia. This was the case of Milirrpum v. Nabalco in which important issues of aboriginal land rights were canvassed. In that case he held that the communal system in which Australian Aborigines had lived could be called a “government of law, and not of men”, accepting that was a system of law predating British settlement. However, he ruled that the British common law did not recognize communal interests and in any event, those interests were extinguished by the assertion of British sovereignty over the land in question. The case led to the eventual introduction of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976.
In May 1971 he was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory. In that same year, he was also appointed a judge of the Federal Court of Australia in 1977 on that court's establishment and served as a judge in that latter court until 1984. He was appointed chief judge of Supreme Court on 7 November 1977. He was appointed chief justice on 7 May 1982 when that position replaced the former position of chief judge.
He was the chairperson of the Law Reform Commission of the Australian Capital Territory from 1971 to 1976. In 1979, Blackburn authored a biographical entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography about his father. In keeping with Blackburn's nature of not seeking honours, he failed to note in the entry that he had himself gone on to become a distinguished judge.
He was Patron of the St John Council for Australian Capital Territory from 1981 to 1984. In 1981, he became a Commander of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in honour of his service.
He was knighted in the New Year's Honours of 1983 for his services to the law. He became Chancellor of the Australian National University in 1984.
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