About the lawyer
Victor Zammit

VICTOR JAMES ZAMMIT's BACKGROUND

Victor James Zammit, B.A.(Psych.) (Univ.of NSW), Grad. Dip.Ed.( Syd. Coll. Adv. Educ now Univ.Tech.Syd.), M.A. (Legal Hist.,Constl. Law)(Univ.of NSW), LL.B.(Univ.of NSW), Ph.D., lawyer, Euro-Australian, is a retired attorney (solicitor/barrister) of the Supreme Court of the New South Wales and the High Court of Australia.

CAREER AS A LAWYER– Very Brief Details

Victor’s admission as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (admitted on 22nd July 1977) and the High Court of Australia (from 19th September 1977) – are a matter of governmental and lawyers’ records. Victor was first registered as a student-at-law with the Barristers Admission Board, Supreme Court on 26th September 1973, registration number 65196.

Victor worked as an attorney in the Local Courts, District and Supreme Courts in Sydney and then more recently he became a Company Law consultant and a lecturer in Corporations Law and Property Law (primarily for work referrals).

In the State of New South Wales, most Australian States - as well as in Canada - the legal profession is "fused" which means that a lawyer can be either a solicitor or barrister both of which are known as attorneys and can practice law in all jurisdictions including the Supreme Court.

One particular significant legal matter Victor was involved in was the R v Borg case in 1979 when he, with another lawyer, were amongst the first to successfully use ‘dissociative reaction to provocation’ as a defence to murder at the District Court in Parramatta before Mr Justice Yeldham. This is a matter of public record and the case was also reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, a mainstream newspaper in the State of New South Wales.

In November 1978 the Premier of the State of New South Wales’, Mr Neville Wran Queen’s Counsellor, - the equivalent to a State Governor in the United States - appointed Victor with exclusive powers, authority and jurisdiction to enquire into the hostage shooting of Abou-Ali who was an innocent bystander and was taken as a hostage by an armed bank robber Dragosevich. The enquiry was to find out who shot dead the innocent hostage – the police or the bank robber.

This procedure was similar to a formal Enquiry Commission. It was one of the most sensational and most controversial cases ever in Australia where Dragosevich, the bank robber, was shot dead by the police. A report on the case was published by the newspaper THE SUN on page 5 Tuesday November 12th 1978 (Fairfax Press), the journalist who reported the case was tough well known Sydney journalist, Peter Charley. Another tough Sydney journalist Andrew Fowler also reported extensively about it. (see external press source confirming Victor worked as a litigation lawyer in one of the most controversial criminal cases in Australian criminal law).

In the early years Victor worked part time with a law enforcement agency, including the police prosecution.

For a number of years Victor had his own law practice at Sydney’s Kings Cross where he was the founding president of the local Chamber of Commerce.

In his work as a lawyer Victor says he soon became a 'professional skeptic' since in he was never in a position to believe anyone unless the client had objective evidence to support the client’s claims.


AS AN AUTHOR

Victor Zammit wrote A LAWYER PRESENTS THE CASE FOR THE AFTERLIFE (National Library of Australia Card No. and ISBN 0-9580115-0-8), which is on the internet. This book has been translated into Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and now is in the process of being translated into German and French. The same book has been translated into Russian and published in Russia. It is now being sold in Russian bookshops. Victor also authored a book about his time as an orator on human rights at Sydney Speakers’ Corner. Called The Domain Speaker it contained transcripts and photos (Standard Publishing House, 1981, Sydney- (National Library of Australia Card Number ISBN 0 959 3733 0 6).

For the last eleven years he has sent out a weekly Friday Afterlife Report to thousands of subscribers around the world.

 

HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVITIES

The mainstream national newspaper Telegraph Dec 22nd 1980 reports that Victor organized human rights demonstrations outside the United States Consulate, in Park Street, Sydney to protest against the Ayatollah Homeini taking American hostages in Iran in 1979. Victor organized over a hundred human rights public meetings in the period 1970-1980.

The mainstream newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald published a report ‘Iran Crisis Protest’ identifying Victor as the organizer of protest mass meeting on Thursday 20th December 1979. Other mainstream national newspaper The Telegraph also reported Victor’s pro-American Human Rights demonstrations. At that time in 1979, Victor was a member of the United Nations Association of New South Wales - Human Rights committee member.

On three occasions within six months Victor debated the brilliant lawyer John Dowd A.O., Q.C., (later a Supreme Court Judge and University Chancellor at Southern Cross University) on A Bill of Rights for Australia. Previously, the Honorable John Dowd was also the Leader of the conservative political Liberal Party (NSW -1981-83) and later Attorney General (1988-91).

The first debate was held at the University of New South Wales in 1989; the second debate at Humanist House Sydney and at the third debate at the Wayside Theatre, Kings Cross. Victor was also Talks & Symposium Officer for the University of New South Wales where he organized and chaired meetings for three Australian Prime Ministers- John Howard, Malcolm Frazer and Bob Hawke as well as for senior and other ministers such as Premier Neville Wran and other VIPs. These VIPs were invited to include human rights issues in Australia.

AT SPEAKERS' CORNER: Mostly during his student days, Victor for some eight years years was also a public park orator at Sydney's Domain Speakers' Corner and London's Hyde Park Speakers Corner

 

OTHER ACTIVITIES

The record shows that Victor did (and still does) volunteer work in legal aid and legal referral. For over a decade 1970-1980 on Sundays Victor volunteered his professional services as meetings co-ordinator and chairperson at the 'Wayside Theatre' at Potts Point, Sydney. It was basically a venue for grassroots political and social justice activity. He worked closely with the legendary spiritually radical, charismatic leader, the Rev. Ted Noffs, and was influenced by his teaching of universal consciousness and respect for all religions and non religionists. He was attracted by the philosophy of the Wayside Chapel - “I am a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, a Muslim, a Sikh, a Buddhist, a Hindu ... I am part of all religions past, present and future, because I am a human being and nothing is alien to me ...” Further, the emphasis at the Wayside was on social justice, in doing for the good of humanity and not on beliefs.

MEDIUMISTIC EXPERIENCES

Victor was initially suspicious of the New Age Movement for what appeared to be its blatant commercial exploitation of people’s basic instinctual tendency for spiritual development. However after many years as an open-minded skeptic he had a number of repeated psychic/mediumistic experiences which set him questioning, reading and researching.

Adopting a scientific criterion, Victor was able to select that information which could withstand and pass the many rigid tests of repeatability and objectivity.

AFTERLIFE WRITER AND RESEARCHER

Victor is now a full time writer and researcher on empirical evidence for the afterlife. His book is being accessed by thousands of people from around the world including all the English speaking countries and Russia, Africa, Asian countries, South Americas, European countries. On his website Victor keeps readers abreast of emerging evidence and links with others active in investigating the afterlife.

SPONSORED ONE MILLION DOLLARS CHALLENGE

Since 2001 Victor has put on his website a sponsored one million dollars challenge to anyone in the world who could show that the afterlife evidence is not valid. Eight years later, no scientist, no physicist, no biologist, no psychologist, no empiricist, no skeptical debunker - no one has been able to beat the challenge from anywhere around the world. The million dollars sponsorship will lapse in the year 2025.

As a journalist/writer Since 2002 Victor has had a regular half page column in the newspaper Psychic World and is its Australian representative: Psychic World Publishing Co. Ltd. P.O. Box 14, Greenford, Middlesex, UB6 OUF. England.

Victor was interviewed by Francis Wilkins, journalist, about his empirical afterlife research for the ultra conservative Australian lawyers’ journal LAWYERS’ WEEKLY (N.S.W) 27th April 2001.

rodiehr April 2012