Bruce Lehrmann, the former Liberal staffer, has launched a final legal bid to challenge the findings that he raped Brittany Higgins, in a dramatic escalation of the years-long legal saga. Lehrmann has filed an application for special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia, arguing that the initial Federal Court judgement against him was "compromised".
The Core of the New Appeal
In documents submitted to the High Court, Lehrmann's legal team contends that Federal Court Justice Michael Lee acted inappropriately during the 2023 defamation trial. They allege Justice Lee conducted his own research into academic literature on sexual assault victims, going beyond the expert material agreed upon in the case facts.
This, they argue, compromised his impartiality and therefore the validity of his landmark judgement. In that April 2023 ruling, Justice Lee dismissed Lehrmann's defamation lawsuit against Network Ten and presenter Lisa Wilkinson. Crucially, Justice Lee found on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins in a Parliament House minister's office in March 2019.
A Legal Saga Spanning Years
The case originates from 2021, when Brittany Higgins publicly alleged she was raped in Parliament House. Although not named by media initially, Lehrmann claimed he was identifiable and subsequently sued for defamation after a criminal case against him collapsed.
That criminal trial in the Australian Capital Territory was aborted in 2022 due to juror misconduct. Prosecutors later dropped the charge, citing an "unacceptable risk" to Higgins's health from a retrial. Lehrmann has consistently denied any sexual contact with Higgins.
Following his defamation loss in 2023, Lehrmann appealed to the Full Federal Court. In a December 2024 decision, the full bench not only dismissed his appeal but went further than Justice Lee. They found Lehrmann was not inebriated and would have known a "very drunk, passive and silent" Higgins was not consenting to sexual intercourse.
Arguments for High Court Intervention
Lehrmann's new application asserts that because the primary judge's findings were compromised, the Full Court's subsequent ruling is also tainted. It claims the Full Court erred by depending on those initial findings and then making an even stronger finding of actual knowledge of non-consent.
The application also delves into the semantics of the defamation, arguing the broadcast conveyed a specific type of rape – "the rape and injury of an unconscious and then protesting woman" – rather than rape of any kind. Lehrmann's team argues the judgements wrongly broadened this meaning.
The application seeks to have both the initial and appeal judgements set aside, with costs awarded to Lehrmann. This represents a last-ditch effort to clear his name of the serious findings made in the civil courts.
The protracted legal battle, described by Justice Lee in his colourful summary as an "omnishambles", has spawned more than a dozen separate legal cases and continues to captivate public attention in Australia and beyond.
