Organised Interests and the Courts: Non-Party Access to the High Court of Australia Between 2012 and 2017

Organised interests are a key component of Australian democratic life — they promise to connect society and economy to political institutions in ways that parties may not. The literature on Australian organised interests has focused primarily on connections to legislative and, to a lesser extent, administrative arenas. However, comparatively little attention has been given to the judicial arena. In this paper, we take a first look at attempts — successful and otherwise — by organised interests to attain access to the High Court of Australia. We focus on one key type of litigation strategy, being non-party intervention, which is the subject of significant research in international contexts. Although in the United States, access to the court for non-parties is more or less automatic, in other contexts like Australia, this is not the case. Over time in Australia, the High Court has become more open to applications from non-parties. We proceed to examine in detail the attempts to access — and levels of success — by non-parties in the High Court of Australia for the period 2012–17. We conclude with a research agenda that will explore the judicial arena as a strategy for organised interest to exert their influence.