WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Virginia Bell, who will lead the anti-Semitism royal commission, gave the green light to the Sydney Harbour Bridge pro-Palestine rally.
OUR VERDICT
False. A different judge, Justice Belinda Rigg, ruled on the protest.
AAP FACTCHECK - The former high court justice chosen to lead an inquiry into anti-Semitism did not approve the Sydney Harbour Bridge pro-Palestine rally, despite claims online.
The ruling that allowed the protest to go ahead in August 2025 was made by a different judge.
Virginia Bell has been appointed by the government to lead a royal commission examining the prevalence of anti-Semitism, religiously motivated extremism and the circumstances surrounding the Bondi terrorist attack.
Following the announcement, false claims about Ms Bell's previous rulings on protests began to spread online.
"Virginia Bell chosen by Albanese was the judge who allowed the Harbour Bridge protest !!!" a January 8 Facebook post claims.
A post on X states: "Virginia Bell was one of three High Court justices to give the green light for Palestinian "protestors" to take over Sydney Harbour Bridge..."
However, Ms Bell was not involved in the legal proceedings that allowed the protest to take place on August 3, 2025, which saw an estimated 90,000 people walk across the Harbour Bridge.
The Supreme Court case arose after NSW Police rejected a request by Palestine Action Group to hold a march across the bridge, citing safety concerns.
It went to the NSW Supreme Court, with police seeking to have the protest deemed an unauthorised public assembly.
Justice Belinda Rigg made the August 2 decision, which refused the police's request. This meant protesters retained legal protection from prosecution for blocking traffic during the march.
Other Facebook posts correctly state that Justice Rigg presided over the Harbour Bridge case, but say her decision cited a ruling previously made by Ms Bell.
"In August 2025, the NSW Supreme Court (Justice Belinda Rigg) rejected a bid by the NSW Police and Premier Chris Minns' government to prohibit a pro-Palestine march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge," a January 10 post claims.
"While Virginia Bell did not preside over this 2025 ruling herself, a 2017 High Court ruling she co-authored was cited as a primary legal precedent to allow the march."
This is also incorrect. Justice Rigg's judgment cited a number of cases, which are listed in court documents, but none were co-authored by Ms Bell.
Luke McNamara, a professor of law at UNSW, confirmed to AAP FactCheck that Justice Rigg's decision on the Harbour Bridge protest did not cite a previous ruling made by Ms Bell.
A ruling in a separate pro-Palestine protest case did cite a decision co-authored by Ms Bell, however.
In a decision in the NSW Supreme Court in October 2025, Justice Anna Mitchelmore found that laws passed by the Minns government to prohibit protests outside places of worship were invalid because they infringed on the implied constitutional freedom of political communication.
The laws were passed in February 2025 following a series of incidents, including arson attacks, vandalism, a hoax caravan bomb plot and a protest outside the Great Synagogue where a member of the Israel Defense Forces reservist was speaking.
Justice Mitchelmore's ruling cited a decision co-authored by Ms Bell in Brown v Tasmania, along with more than 30 other cases.
The 2017 court case was brought by environmental activists challenging anti-protest laws passed by the Tasmanian parliament, which aimed to crack down on protests in forests.
Ms Bell, along with former chief justices Susan Kiefel and Patrick Keane, found that certain provisions in the laws were invalid because they "impermissibly burden the implied freedom of political communication contrary to the Commonwealth Constitution" (page 40).
Prof McNamara said it is unremarkable that Brown v Tasmania was cited in Justice Mitchelmore's ruling.
"[It] is an important case about the implied freedom of communication and protest rights and it is entirely unremarkable that it would be cited in a NSW case that involved these very topics," he said.
AAP FactCheck has also debunked claims that Ms Bell was photographed at the March for Humanity across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
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