From Australia’s Jewish past

Ron Castan AM QC – barrister and human rights advocate

Ron was born in Melbourne on 29 October 1939 and completed his education in Melbourne.  His parents, Mossie and Annia, were Russian Jewish immigrants who emigrated to Australia to make a new life.   As a baby, Ron had a bowel obstruction, and doctors were quite certain that he would not live. His parents were sent home from the hospital with the advice that they should have another baby. Ron survived, but had consistent health issues throughout his life because of the scar tissue from the original operation, and it was this issue that eventually ended his life prematurely.

Ron felt fortunate to have lived past his first year. He had two brothers, one older, George and one younger, Noel, who has passed away. Ron’s parents instilled in him great values, and he was considered a leader in the Jewish community.  He was educated at Carey Baptist Grammar School and learned what it was to be different as a Jewish child in a Baptist school.   Ron graduated from the University of Melbourne Law School with the Supreme Court prize in 1961; obtained a master’s degree at Harvard, commenced practice at the Victorian Bar in 1966, and was appointed Counsel in 1980. He comfortably traversed, as a pre-eminent counsel of his day, both taxation, commercial and constitutional law, on the one hand, and ‘poverty law’ issues – discrimination, indigenous rights – on the other.  Ron epitomised the spirit and practice of law reform, the practice of pro bono law, and support for the underprivileged.   Ron met his wife Nellie when she was nineteen, and they were soon married.  Ron was twenty-three and had just completed his law degree. The couple lived in the US for a year while he studied at Harvard University.

Ron is best known for his leading role in the landmark Mabo native title case, which reversed the concept of Terra Nullius and secured land rights for many Indigenous people. By the time of the judgment in 1992, Ron and his colleagues had been running the litigation for a decade. According to Bryan Keon-Cohen QC, who also worked on the case, “it can be confidently said that without the different but vital contributions of both Eddie Mabo and Ron Castan, the Mabo cases would never have survived their ten-year torturous course – let alone succeeded.”  Ron’s commitment to Indigenous rights stretched back almost to the beginning of his career. In 1971, he was the founding secretary of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service.  In 1982, he appeared before the High Court in Koowarta v Bjelke-Peterson, another landmark Indigenous rights case that pre-dated Mabo. Even after the Mabo case, the fight was not over. In 1998, Ron found himself back in the trenches, negotiating with the Howard Government as it sought to roll back native title rights.

Ron wrote that the Mabo case had had a tremendous effect on him.  He thought it was of enormous significance and saw it as a great victory to have had a judge accept the substance of all of that, although he thought he was obviously wrong on the technical result.  He was also committed to human rights and served for several years as a Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissioner, revitalising the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty Victoria) in the mid-1980s to challenge the Hawke Government over the proposed Australia Card. Ron was an important member of the Australian Constitutional Commission from 1986 to 1988, working with Thomas Kenneally, Peter Garrett, and Terry Purcell to produce the report on individual and democratic rights. Of working with Ron, Thomas Kenneally said, “there was a sort of ruthlessness in him, a ruthlessness on behalf of justice”.

In 1985, Ron, together with Uncle Jim Berg, author and the inaugural Chair of the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council and a contributor in the establishment of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and Ron Merkel QC Australian Jurist, sued the University of Melbourne and the Museum of Victoria for the return of their collections of Indigenous cultural material and through this act Jim created the Koorie Heritage Trust.  Ron also played a leading role in the legislative discussions on Australian native title law throughout the 1990s, having devised the solution to the standoff in the Australian Senate over the Wik settlement.   Many other people benefited from Ron’s involvement, including the human rights and independence movements in Tibet and East Timor, as well as

numerous individuals in need of assistance.

Ron Castan passed away on 21 October 1999, due to a complication following surgery.  In a speech given by Michael Kirby, former Justice of the High Court, following Ron’s passing, he spoke of “Nellie when talking to Ron about the claims of the native peoples in Papua-New Guinea, she demanded to know why a similar claim could not be mounted for Aboriginal peoples in Australia.   Ron patiently began to give the reasons.  A Privy Council decision. A hundred and fifty years of case law. Accepted legal doctrine. Statutory provisions were enacted on that hypothesis. On and on went the reasons. Nellie was persistent with questions, and it entered Ron’s conscious and unconscious mind. How valuable it is to have someone say: “You are a prisoner of your own absurd hypotheses! Think again! Challenge received wisdom when the world has moved to another plane! Escape the prison of your mind!” Nellie did this, and Ron listened. In two hundred years, the role of Nellie and other questioners will be acknowledged. We should all question received wisdom. Sometimes it was right and wise for the time in which it was propounded. Sometimes, viewed through contemporary eyes, it appears to rest on dubious foundations.

In an article written by a colleague of Ron’s, Glenda McNaught, “his strong moral compass led him to pursue issues that were seen by many as a ‘lost cause'”.  Glenda wrote that life in Ron’s chambers was always interesting, stimulating, and great fun.  His sense of humour was never far from the surface, and the banter with fellow practitioners was highly amusing and without malice.  His strong moral compass led him to pursue issues that were seen by many as a “lost cause”. He acted according to his conscience, free from ego, and in some cases, despite strong opposition. The respect afforded him by the bench of the High Court during his numerous appearances reflected that demonstrated by the profession generally and the wider community.

Ron had a great interest in commerce, politics, the arts, and philanthropy.  He was also a keen cyclist and participated in the Great Victorian Bike Ride.  All who knew him spoke or wrote about the pleasure it had been to have known such an extraordinary human being and what a pleasure it was to have had the opportunity to have been part of his life.  Ron was privileged to have two portraits hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.

It was through his colleague, Glenda, and his daughter, Melissa, that the ‘Ron Castan Education Fund’ at the Melbourne Community Foundation was established.   The Monash University Law Faculty was in the process of setting up a human rights centre when Ron passed away.  The Casten Centre for Human Rights Law has been named in his honour.   In 2013, the Castan Family and Jewish Aid launched the inaugural Ron Castan Humanitarian Award and Ron Castan Young Humanitarian Award.

Ron was survived by his wife, Nellie, who described her husband in his professional life as being open-minded. He viewed each day he lived as a privilege rather than a right.  Ron and Nellie were blessed with three children, Melissa, Lindy and Steven and their families.  Following his death, tributes flowed from the legal and political community, and he was described by Senator Aden Ridgeway as “the great white warrior against racism”.

 

The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story:

Wikipedia; University of Melbourne; National Portrait Gallery, extract from The Hon Michael Kirby’s speech at Koori Heritage Trust Dinner and Oration and article by Glenda McNaught in the Monash University Casten Centre for Human Rights Law Newsletter

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