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Bruce Topperwien's Legal Page

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Veterans' Law

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    Useful Legal Links

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  • New Zealand

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    Law Journals

    with full text articles
    (mostly)

    Disclaimer

    Send me an e-mail

    I have been closely involved in veterans' law since 1980. See a brief record of that involvement.

    I am a doctoral student in the Faculty of Law at the Australian National University in Canberra. My thesis relates to deference in judicial review of administrative action. In 1999 I completed a Master of Laws Degree in Public Law at the ANU. I recently completed an entry for the Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia on the High Court's use of foreign precedents.

    Here are three of my essays (excluding footnotes, but including bibliographies) concerning Australian constitutional and administrative law:

  • Separation of powers and the status of administrative review (recently published in (1999) AIAL Forum, No.20 - the Journal of the Australian Institute of Administrative Law);

  • The nature, source, and scope of the national executive, or nationhood, power; and

  • Ventures in the trackless jungle: the use of American caselaw by the High Court of Australia.


  • Project to Rewrite the Australian Constitution in Clearer Language




    Veterans' law and related links


    The Veterans' Law Course at Southern Cross University is a short external course for the award of a Certificate in Law. It is intended for non-legally qualified people with an interest in veterans issues.

    The course includes four units:

  • Legal Research and Writing;
  • Veterans' Law 1;
  • Veterans Law 2; and
  • Law and Government Decision Making.
    These subjects can be taken as a Short Course or as electives in the Associate Degree in Law or Bachelor of Legal and Justice Studies.

    If you are interested in the course commencing in February 2002, contact the University by phone on (02) 6620 3109, by fax on (02) 6622 4167 or by e-mail at [email protected]. The University's CRICOS Provider Code for international students is 01241G.

    Veterans' Entitlements Law by Robin Creyke and Peter Sutherland was published by Federation Press and Softlaw Community Projects in June 2000. Other contributors were Pauline Ridge and Bruce Topperwien.

    The book can be purchased on line from Federation Press

    History of veterans' disability pension systems,
    an article recently published in (1999) 40 Sabretache No.4,
    Journal of the Military Historical Society of Australia.
    (Microsoft Word document) (RTF document)

    The Word "Anzac", an article published in (1997) 38 Sabretache No.3
    (Microsoft Word document) (RTF document)

    Australian veterans' law:

    Useful information

    Legislation

    • Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986
      • (VEA)

    • Vehicle Assistance Scheme (Delegated legislation under section 105 of the VEA, which I drafted for the Repatriation Commission, This Scheme commenced 1 October 1997. The scheme provides free motor vehicles for certain severely disabled veterans.)

    • Veterans' Vocational Rehabilitation Scheme (Delegated legislation under section 115B of the VEA, which I drafted for the Repatriation Commission. The Scheme commenced on 1 December1997.
      The scheme provides vocational rehabilitation for veterans.      )

    • Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
      (Delegated legislation under section 91 of the VEA, which Fiona Matthews and I drafted for the Repatriation Commission. The scheme contains the rules relating to the provision by pharmacists of pharmaceutical benefits for veterans.)

    • Guide to the Assessment of Rates of Veterans' Pensions (GARP) 1.4 Mb pdf file -- requires Adobe Acrobat Reader (Delegated legislation under section 29 of the VEA, which the late George Molnar, Dr Jim Harwood, Ranjana Sharma and I drafted for the Repatriation Commission. GARP contains the rules relating to the assessment of degree of incapacity from war-caused or defence-caused injury and disease.)

    • Repatriation Medical Authority's Statements of Principles
      • (Delegated legislation under section 196B of the VEA, setting out the factors that must exist and which must be related to service before
      injury, disease or death can be determined to be war-caused or defence-caused.      )

    • Specialist Medical Review Council Declarations and reasons for decision

      • (Upon application for review, the SMRC reviews the content of Statements of Principles
      determined by the Repatriation Medical Authority.      )

    Cases

    Other useful links





    United States veterans' law:

  • Board of Veterans' Appeals

  • Search the text of Board of Veterans' Appeals decisions

    • 1994 ... 1995 ... 1996 ... 1997 ... 1998 ... 1999 ... 2000

  • US Code Title 38 and other veterans' legislation

  • United States House of Representatives Committee on Veterans' Affairs

  • United States Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs

  • US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims

  • Opinions (judgments) of US Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit from 1995, including appeals from US Court of Veterans' Appeals. Find veterans cases by searching for Brown, Gober, West, or Principi
    (ie, the names of past and present Secretaries of DVA)

  • National Veterans Organisation's VetView Files 98 page which includes indexes and text of US Court of Veterans' Appeals
    precedential decisions, plus legislation and a lot of other useful information

  • US Veterans Affairs publication, Federal Benefits for Veterans and Dependents

  • List of practitioners who are permitted to appear before
    the US Court of Veterans Appeals.

  • Judge Advocates Association
    • the national bar association exclusively dedicated to the practitioners of
    military and veteran related law

  • Veterans Voice of Austin web pages which contain information on Bills before Congress on veterans issues

  • Vietnam Veterans of America Veterans Benefits News

    • Canadian veterans' law:

  • Federal Court of Canada decisions on veterans' cases.

  • Veterans Review and Appeal Board

  • Canadian veterans legislation

  • Report of the Auditor-General of Canada
    concerning Veterans Affairs Canada Disability Pensions

  • Services and benefits

  • Canadian Veterans' Alliance





    		•
    New Zealand veterans' law:

  • War Pensions Act 1954

  • New Zealand High Court case:
    Nixon v War Pensions Appeal Board and Auld

  • Decision of the War Pensions Appeal Board in
    Auld's case [1990] NZAR 40
    from which the appeal was taken to the High Court

  • New Zealand Government announces new Office of Veterans' Affairs

    • United Kingdom veterans' law:

  • War Pensions Agency

  • Rights of appeal

  • Notes about appealing to the Pensions Appeal Tribunal

  • Benefits

  • Royal British Legion site
    with information concerning pension claims.





    • Useful Legal Links

    Australian law

  • The Australian Constitution site from Sydney University. Many papers on various constitutional issues, including the coming Australian republic.

  • The Hansard record of the debates from the 1998 Constitutional Convention

  • Papers from the Women's Constitutional Convention, 1998.

  • The somewhat conservative Samuel Griffith Society.

  • The Evatt Foundation.


    • AustLII, Australian legal resources database (cases and legislation)

    ScalePlus is another great Australian legal database site.

    The Australian Parliament site has Bills and Explanatory Memoranda in pdf format. There are also various papers on legal issues.

    The High Court of Australia site has speeches given by current and past High Court judges, and other information concerning the High Court

  • Australian Law Reform Commission publications.

    • ABC Radio's Law Report.

    United States law

    Cornell University's United States Supreme Court site.

    Selected historic decisions of the US Supreme Court.

    Brief biographies of US Supreme Court Justices.

  • Law Journal Extra! coverage of the United States Supreme Court, including recent cases, biographies, news reports, etc.


  • The Federalist Society (USA) Bibliography.

  • The Constitution Society is a private non-profit organization dedicated to research and public education on the principles of constitutional republican government.


  • Thomas -- US Congress resources (legislation, congressional record, reports).

  • The 'Lectric Law Library's Rotunda is a great site for weird legal stuff as well as very useful American legal material.

    • Canadian law
    United Kingdom law

    New Zealand law

    Miscellaneous law

    Law Journals



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    Bruce Topperwien
    PO Box 367
    Woden ACT
    AUSTRALIA
    2606
    Ph: 61-2-6285 3830
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    e-mail:     [email protected]

    DISCLAIMER: I, Bruce Topperwien, do not invite reliance upon, nor accept responsibility for, any information on or linked to this site. I do not give any guarantees, undertakings or warranties concerning the accuracy, completeness or up-to-date nature of the information provided. Users should confirm information from another source if it is of sufficient importance for them to seek to rely upon it.

    Any views expressed by myself on any matter on this site are (or were) my own and should not be taken to be those of the Veterans' Review Board (for whom I am currently employed), neither should they be taken to be the views of the Department of Veterans' Affairs nor the Repatriation Commission (for whom I was previously employed and whom I previously represented).

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