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True crime might be having a moment, but Alan Erson, producer of the ABC miniseries Judgment: Cases That Changed Australia, wants to put “true law” in the spotlight. Through four landmark cases brought to the High Court of Australia, the series focuses on citizens who shifted the national landscape. People such as Rodney Croome, who fought to decriminalise homosexuality in Tasmania; the late Torres Strait Islands land rights campaigner Eddie Mabo; Palestinian asylum seeker Ahmed Al Kateb, who challenged mandatory immigration detention; and Wiradjuri woman and member of the Stolen Generation Vickie Roach, who fought for prisoners’ right to vote.
“We looked for big stories about the law, with the highest stakes, which inevitably led us to the High Court of Australia,” says Erson. “We’re at a time when there are some people who are losing faith in democracy. That’s possibly understandable. But to see the system working for some people, some of the time, is helpful … Vickie Roach was a woman locked up in prison. Eddie Mabo was an ordinary guy who discovered that the state of Queensland owned the land that his people had occupied for thousands of years. We do have some mechanisms for ordinary people to seek justice and recognition.”
The series blends dramatisation and archival footage with powerful interviews – with the plaintiffs and their families, their legal teams, the judiciary and politicians. In turning legalese into engaging television, Erson leant on the “theatrical” skills of barristers.
“There is a drama to the High Court,” he says. “It’s just couched in complicated language. It’s like Shakespeare without the poetry. Lawyers are great storytellers. When they’re telling the story to the High Court, they’re using the language and tropes of the High Court. But when you ask them to tell the story to an ordinary person sitting next to them on the bus, they’re quite good.”
For filmmaker Victoria Midwinter Pitt, who directed the first and third episodes, “Love” and “We Will Decide”, the project was personal.
“I came out of the closet when I was about 26, when all of this stuff with Tasmania and Rodney’s fight was bubbling away,” she says. “I spent a fair bit of some of the interviews having a little cry – sometimes tears of joy.”
As with Croome, Midwinter Pitt worked closely with Kateb in telling the story of his battle to end his seven-year-long detention.
“Ahmed and I spent a lot of time agreeing about how we would do this. What he’s been through has cost him a great deal,” Midwinter Pitt says. “And so it’s important that Ahmed was conscious about the choices that he made in terms of speaking to us. So that’s about having patience and time. And frankly, it’s a fantastic thing about the ABC returning to this realm of serious, long-form documentary-making because it can’t be done in a month. I think what you see in that interview is, he is really in possession of himself. He has not spoken about [his ordeal] a lot, not even with his family. But he very much wants people to know that he’s done what he can, so that nobody else goes through what he went through.”
That all four High Court cases occurred in living memory should serve as a reminder that hard-won change is ongoing.
“It’s not inevitable that things get better,” says Erson. “Sometimes they get worse for a lot of people. I mean, Eddie Mabo’s case was in 1992. Terra Nullius was a terrible burden for First Nations people, but it’s a burden for the whole country. It’s blinding stupidity and ignorance. Eddie Mabo relieved us of that. As a starting point, he gave us a way out of our ugly, nasty history.”
Adds Midwinter Pitt: “The Constitution is a promise to every single one of us. It tells us that the government’s powers are limited … I think it’s a great time to remind Australians why this is important … Get out the Constitution. It’s not a long document.”
Judgment: Cases That Changed Australia premieres at 8.40pm on Tuesday, April 14, on the ABC and ABC iview.
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