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Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann has appealed to the nation’s highest court, seeking to overturn a finding that he raped his colleague Brittany Higgins inside Parliament House.
Lehrmann applied to the High Court on Friday for special leave to have his case heard, arguing the rejection of his defamation bid against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson in 2024 by Justice Michael Lee relied on inappropriately conducted research that compromised the judge’s impartiality.
Bruce Lehrmann has made an application to the High Court.Credit: Dan Peled
Lehrmann had sued the network over an interview with Higgins aired on The Project, but Lee upheld the network’s defence that the report was true, finding Lehrmann had raped Higgins, on the civil balance of probabilities.
It is Lehrmann’s last avenue to overturn the verdict in the multimillion dollar legal battle, after the Full Federal Court in December rejected his first appeal against the defamation loss and made further damning findings that the former federal Liberal staffer was not just reckless, but knew Higgins had not consented to sex.
Lehrmann, who was not convicted after a criminal case against him collapsed because of juror misconduct, has maintained he did not rape Higgins.
His lawyer Zali Burrows argued in the application that the High Court should dismiss both Lee’s and the Full Federal Court’s finding, and send the matter back to the Federal Court.
She argued that Lee had conducted his own research and obtained “extraneous non-legal material”, despite Lee noting in his judgment that he was not relying on matters not in evidence.
The document pointed to “extensive empirical studies” referenced by Lee about how victims may freeze when sexually assaulted, and said the research had influenced Lee’s ruling.
“It ought to have been apparent to the Full Court that the primary judge had conducted his own research and obtained extraneous material,” the document said.
It asserted that the Full Federal Court had failed to conduct a proper review of Lee’s “compromised” ruling.
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“Irrespective of the fact that the primary judge [Lee] had made compromised findings, the full court went further than even the primary judge himself was prepared to go,” it said. “That fact finding and appellate process has miscarried.”
It is rare for the High Court to grant special leave to appeal, particularly when the legal argument could have been made in a first appeal but was not, as in Lehrmann’s case.
Lehrmann is facing the threat of bankruptcy because he is unable to meet court costs orders against him totalling more than $2 million.
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