Custodians of Gunlom Falls, within the Northern Territory's Kakadu National Park, have argued for territory laws to apply to the federal government in a case that could set a precedent for how sacred sites are protected.
The cascading waterfall appeared in the movie Crocodile Dundee.
The case centres around damage caused by Parks Australia during the construction of a walkway built too close to a sacred men's site in 2019.
The Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority filed charges against the National Parks director in 2020.
The NT Supreme Court found the track works weren't properly authorised under the Sacred Sites Act but also ruled the Commonwealth couldn't be held legally responsible for the damage under the territory law.
The ruling prompted the authority to appeal to the High Court which is scheduled to hand down its judgement on Wednesday.
Parks Australia apologised and agreed to redirect the track away from the sacred site but the authority wanted criminal accountability.
The laws impose fines and potential prison sentences on people who damage a sacred site.Â
The High Court has been tasked with deciding whether that law can apply to Parks Australia, which successfully argued it was a Commonwealth entity, and therefore protected, in the territory's highest court.
Australian governments couldn't make laws that bound other governments, Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue wrote in his submission to the court.
"Still less would one expect to find one government imposing criminal liability on another," he wrote.
The protection authority argued no entity was above the law, including governments.
The director of National Parks was a legal person separate from the Commonwealth and should face penalties under the territory's sacred sites law, it argued.
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