Austin Asche

Keith John Austin Asche (18 November 1925—) was born in Melbourne. He is a former Administrator of the Northern Territory and was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory from 1987-1993. He resigned to take up the position of Administrator of the Northern Territory, which he held until his retirement in 1997.

It was in this capacity as Administrator that, in 1996, Asche was sued privately by Chris Wake and the Rev. Djiniyini Gondarra in an attempt to challenge the legitimacy of the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995 (Wake & Gondarra v. Northern Territory of Australia & Asche, 1996). The Supreme Court of the Northern Territory rejected the challenge 2:1; however, the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act was eventually overturned with the passing of the Euthanasia Laws Act 1997 in Federal Parliament (Cica, 1997).

Asche was a vocal supporter of various attempts to repeal the Euthanasia Laws Act 1997, mainly on self-governance grounds. For example, he submitted to the Senate Committee considering submissions on the ill-fated Rights of the Terminally Ill (Euthanasia Laws Repeal) Bill 2008, that if the small Territorian population was being cited as a reason for the illegitimacy of the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995:

"... the Tasmanians ought to be starting to feel very uncomfortable, because there are only 400,000 or so of them. If you do grant self-government to a series of bodies, then you allow them to determine themselves within their own province ... If you say that the citizens of the Territory are immature—and that means that perhaps the citizens of Tasmania are just slightly more mature and the citizens of South Australia perhaps a little bit more mature—by all means do so, but that means that you should not be passing self-government acts."  (Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, 2008: p. 214).

As of August 2022, he remains the Chair of the Northern Territory Law Reform Committee, and is an adjunct professor in Law and Emeritus Chancellor at Charles Darwin University. 

Cica, N. (1997). Euthanasia - the Australian Law in an International Context. Part 2: Active Voluntary Euthanasia. Research Paper 4 1996-1997. Parliament of Australia. https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/rp/rp9697/97rp4

Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. (2008). Rights of the Terminally Ill (Euthanasia Laws Repeal) Bill 2008. Australasian Parliamentary Review 23(2), 206–42.

Wake & Gondarra v. Northern Territory of Australia & Asche. 112 (N.T. Sup. Ct. 1996). https://supremecourt.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/782574/1996-NTSCFC-56-Wake-and-Anor-v-Northern-Territory-and-Anor-24-Jul-1996-Martin-CJ-and-Angel-and-Mildren-JJ.pdf