Fourteen teams of Year 11 and 12 students from Australian schools competed in the finals of the Bond University High School Mooting Competition on Friday 1 June and Saturday 2 June. The national competition, conducted by the Bond University Faculty of Law, brings together schools from every state and territory who present their arguments in front of real judges, academics and legal professionals. Hundreds of teams from across the country competed in the preliminary round in May. This group was whittled down to the 14 highest-scoring teams who returned to Bond University for the finals. The Scots College Year 12 team were victorious after beating Brisbane’s Citipointe Christian College in the Grand Final.
This year, 100 teams competed in the preliminary round of the competition, up from 85 last year. The standard of mooting was so impressive that 14 teams were invited to the Finals rounds, higher than the usual eight to ten, representing the largest and most competitive field in the competition’s history. The top two teams over the two-day finals made the Grand Final on the Saturday afternoon.
The Scots College, as the appellant, faced Citipointe Christian College who acted as the respondent in the Grand Final at the university’s moot court on Saturday afternoon. The team, coached by university mooting champion Mr JP Asimakis, included Year 12 students Tom Hodgson (Senior Counsel), Oliver Oayda (Junior Counsel) and Emlyn Evans (Instructing Solicitor). To cap the victory, Tom Hodgson was awarded the Overall Outstanding Oralist Award. Third place was awarded to Adelaide’s St. Peter’s Girls’ School and fourth to Perth’s Presbyterian Ladies’ College.
Queensland Supreme Court’s the Honourable Justice Robert Gotterson AO and retired District Court of Queensland Judge John Newton were among the esteemed judges. The students were given details about their real-world cases in March and methodically prepared their arguments.
English Teacher, Ms Marlee Buckley, coordinated and managed the mooting program.
The finalists of the Mooting Competition for 2018 were:
- Brisbane State High School, Brisbane
- Camberwell Girls Grammar School, Melbourne
- Citipointe Christian College, Brisbane
- Emmanuel College, Gold Coast – Team 2
- Fairholme College, Toowoomba
- Heights College, Rockhampton
- Presbyterian Ladies College, Perth – Team 2
- Pymble Ladies’ College, Sydney
- Scotch College, Adelaide – Team 1
- Seymour College, Adelaide
- Somerset College, Gold Coast – Team 1
- Somerville House, Brisbane
- St. Peter’s Girls’ School, Adelaide – Team 1
- The Scots College, Sydney
Photo Caption:
The victorious Year 12 team from The Scots College: The Honourable Justice Robert Gotterson AO, Emlyn Evans, Oliver Oayda, Thomas Hodgson, Bond University’s Jo Hintz and Judge John Newton.
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