Paul Coe

Paul Coe (born 4th February, 1949), a Wiradjuri man born at Erambie Mission in Cowra, is an Australian Aboriginal activist.[1] His grandfather was Paul Joseph Coe.[2]

Coe addressing a meeting to protest the bicentennial reenactment of James Cook's arrival in Australia, July 1970

Coe was the first Aboriginal scholar at Cowra High School to study for the Higher School Certificate and to be elected a prefect.[3]

Career

Coe was active in campaigns around the 1967 referendum and the establishment in 1972 of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy,[4] working with Pearl Gibbs, Chicka Dixon and Billy Craigie in the fight for basic human rights and justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Coe and a group of other activists including Isabel Coe, Gary Williams, Gary Foley and Tony Coorey also founded the Aboriginal Legal Service in 1970, the first free legal assistance service in Australia.[4][5] He continued to play an important role in this organisation until the late 1990s.

In 1979, Coe commenced an unsuccessful action in the High Court of Australia arguing that rights of Aborigines as prior inhabitants of Australia before European colonisation should be recognised.[6]

Disbarment

In 1997, following proceedings in the Legal Services Tribunal, Paul Coe's name was removed from the roll of legal practitioners. The Tribunal found that Coe had sworn an affidavit which he knew to be false in a material particular. The affidavit in question was sworn in the course of family law proceedings, to which Coe was a party, and understated his salary by some $80,000.[7]

Coe appealed the decision, but the Supreme Court of New South Wales Court of Appeal upheld the Tribunal's decision.

Both the Tribunal and the Court of Appeal commended Coe's role in advancing the interests of the Aboriginal community, however, the Court considered that Coe was not fit to practise, stating that the Court must be able to trust that barristers appearing before it would act in accordance with the law and would not mislead the Court.[7]

Media reports indicate that Coe was subsequently investigated by the Bar Association of NSW for continuing to practise despite being removed from the roll. The outcome of the investigation is unknown.[8]

References
  1. "Bain Attwood and Terra Nullius". Sunday Profile. ABC Local Radio. 25 July 2004.
  2. Peter Read (2006). "Coe, Paul Joseph (1902? - 1979)". Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition. Australian National University. ISSN 1833-7538.
  3. "Paul's a Prefect". Dawn. June 1966.
  4. Jon Faine (November 1993). Lawyers in the Alice: aboriginals and whitefellas' law (3 ed.). Sydney: Federation Press. pp. 14–21. ISBN 978-1-86287-115-1.
  5. "Aboriginal Legal Service". dictionaryofsydney.org. Retrieved 3 June 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. Coe v Commonwealth [1979] HCA 68
  7. Coe v NSW Bar Association [2000] NSWCA 13
  8. Debra Jopson (10 November 2003). "Struck-off barrister under investigation". SMH.
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