Background
Mitchell was born in Tasmania where he was educated and admitted to the bar on 4 February 1958.
Mitchell was born in Tasmania where he was educated and admitted to the bar on 4 February 1958.
Boston University (Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, 1960. Juris Doctor, 1963).
In due course he was also admitted to the bar in Victoria, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, South Australia, West Australia, England and Lesotho. Mitchell worked for the British Colonial Service in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, now known as Botswana, as an Assistant District Officer on probation in the Serowe District in the year following his appointment on March 24, 1960. He subsequently joined the Commonwealth Public Service, where he was responsible for legal matters in Papua New Guinea for the then Department of External Territories.
He transferred to the Attorney-General"s Department, where he helped establish the Australian Legal Aid Office in 1974 before being seconded to Lesotho.
Mitchell was Solicitor-General for Lesotho in October 1976, when Lesotho was in dispute with its neighbour South Africa over the closure of three border crossings into the Transkei, that was designed to pressure Lesotho into recognizing this "homeland" established by South Africa for its Bantu peoples. He successfully presented the case for the government of Lesotho to the Security Council of the United Nations which resulted in an aid package of $US113 million.
He also acted as procurator for the Tasmanian Assembly of the Church, resigning in August 2000 after serving in that post for well over a decade. Subsequently he acted temporarily in the same capacity for the South Australian Assembly of the Church in 2002, and was the convener of the Tasmanian Theological Education Committee in 2003.
He "felt that he had been enormously privileged to have been a delegate at the convention, where overall there had been a good spirit of cooperation.. concerned that the push for a republic represents a tearing away from the Scriptural basis of our system of government, going back as far as Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, which were under-girded by Scripture." He subsequently self-published a paperback booklet, Republic? Mitchell ran as one of two Australian Senate candidates in Tasmania for the Christian Democratic Party in the 2004 federal election.
He received 2,270 primary votes and was eliminated after the 95th recount. Today Mitchell campaigns against recognising local government in the Australian Constitution, and against an Australian Republic.
Mitchell was elected a delegate from Tasmania to the 1998 Australian Constitutional Convention as a member of the Australian Monarchist League.