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.), Dip. Hypn. - (from
the School of Hypnotic Sciences - adjunct to a major in
Psychology), M.A. (Legal Hist.,Constl. Law)(Univ.of NSW),
LL.B.(Univ.of NSW), Ph.D., lawyer, Euro-Australian, is a
retired attorney of the Supreme Court of the
New South Wales and the High Court of Australia. Victor
arrived in Australia from Europe in 1957 as a mid teenager.
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.
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).
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.
Accordingly, on three occasions within six months
Victor debated
the brilliant lawyer His Hon. John Dowd A.O., Q.C., (later
a Supreme Court Judge, now University Chancellor at Southern
Cross University, on the 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-
the current P.M. John Howard, Malcolm Frazer and Robert
Hawke, senior and other ministers such as Premier Neville
Wran and other VIP’s. These VIP’s 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 millon dollars ponsorship will lapse in the
year 2025.
On Radio
Between 2003 and 2004 Victor was a regular program guest
on the Sharina psychic radio show on Sunday nights onmainstream
radio station 2UE in Sydney.
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.
Interviewed by Lawyers's Journal
Francis
Wilkins, journalist, writes about Victor’s empirical
afterlife research in the ultra conservative lawyers’
journal LAWYERS’ WEEKLY (N.S.W) Australia 27th April
2001.
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