Sir Francis Gerard Brennan (22 May 1928 – 1 June 2022) was an Australian lawyer and jurist who served as the 10th Chief Justice of Australia. As a judge in the High Court of Australia, he wrote the lead judgement on the Mabo decision, which gave rise to the Native Title Act. Early life and education Brennan was born on May 22, 1928 in Rockhampton, Queensland. He was the son of Frank Tenison Brennan, a Labor Party politician, lawyer and judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland. He was raised as, and continued to be, a Catholic and has said: "Egalitarianism, tolerance and the respect for conscience are the practical manifestations of faith, hope and charity." Career Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser appointed Brennan to the court in 1981. As a High Court judge, Brennan wrote the lead judgement on the Mabo decision, which overturned the doctrine of terra nullius used to justify the Crown's sovereignty over Australia, replacing it with the doctrine of native title, and thus protecting Aboriginal people's claims to land. This decision eventually gave rise to the Native Title Act. Brennan is also notable for his landmark judgement in Waltons v Maher, which established equitable estoppel as a cause of action in itself. He was appointed by prime minister Paul Keating to become the 10th Chief Justice of Australia in 1995. After retirement Following his retirement from the High Court, Brennan was a non-permanent judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (2000-2012) and an external judge of the Supreme Court of Fiji (1999–2000), chancellor of the University of Technology Sydney (1998–2004) and Foundation Scientia Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales (1998). He was an honorary visiting professor of law at the University of New South Wales. In June 2021, Brennan intervened in a public debate over a family of asylum seekers, supporting the family with a letter in major newspapers. It begins: Are other Australians ashamed, as I am? How can Australia, proud of our freedoms, respectful of all our peoples, and insistent on human dignity, inflict cruelty on Australian children as a means of achieving a goal of government policy? Personal life In 1953, Brennan married Patricia O'Hara. Lady Brennan died on 3 September 2019. Their first child, Frank Brennan, born in 1954, became a Jesuit priest, a human rights lawyer and an advocate for the rights of Aboriginal peoples.