Anthony Mason

Sir Anthony Frank Mason served as the ninth Chief Justice of Australia from 1987 to 1995, after earlier service as Solicitor-General of Australia and as a justice of the High Court of Australia from 1972. His court decided the landmark case Mabo v Queensland in 1992, which recognized native title in Australian law and overturned the doctrine of terra nullius, and his tenure is often described as the high point of the High Court's move away from strict legalism toward a more flexible approach to precedent. After leaving the bench he served as a non-permanent judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal and as chancellor of the University of New South Wales.