RP v The Queen

The High Court has allowed an appeal against a decision of the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal on the presumption of lack of criminal responsibility by offenders under 14 years of age. The appellant was 11 to 12 years old when he allegedly sexually abused his younger brother on two occasions. A child offender under 14 years old is presumed to not be responsible for his or her crimes, though this presumption can be rebutted by evidence that the offender was aware that the conduct was seriously wrong, as distinct from an act of ‘mere naughtiness or mischief’ (see NSWCCA at [34]). The NSWCCA unanimously upheld the trial judge’s ruling that the presumption was rebutted by evidence that the appellant Continue reading

News: French Court averaged 50 substantive judgments per year

The High Court’s 2015/2016 annual report states (as every annual report has for the past decade) that:

the numbers of Full Court hearings and decisions in 2015–16 were comparable with averages for both during the past 10 years.

However, as noted here last year, the number of published judgments in 2014 (49) and 2015 (53)  were among the fifteen lowest in the High Court’s history. With three judgments released today, 2016 equals 2015’s number of published judgments.

As previously noted, counting High Court judgments is not straightforward, because of changing practices in judgment publication (notably past courts’ willingness to issue lengthy substantive judgments on special leave applications.) The judgments published by the High Court typically include some minor judgements – single judge decisions and interlocutory rulings – that seemingly reflect publishing preferences in individual judges. This year, there were four such judgments, leaving 49 substantive judgments in 2016, one more than each of the last two years. The final counts of substantive judgments for the French Court are: Continue reading

ElecNet (Aust) Pty Ltd (as Trustee for the Electrical Industry Severance Scheme) v Commissioner of Taxation

The High Court has dismissed an appeal against a decision of the Full Federal Court on the meaning of ‘unit trusts’ for tax purposes. The appellant is the trustee of the Electrical Industry Severance Scheme Trust (the ‘EISS trust’), which protects redundancy or insolvency pay entitlements of employees in the electrical trades industry by requiring employers to pay money into a fund, from which payments could be made to employees following termination of their employment. The appellant sought a ruling from the respondent that the EISS trust was a unit trust for the purposes of div 6C of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth), and the Commissioner ruled that it was not a unit trust. While div 6C does not define ‘unit trust’ it does define ‘unit, in relation to a prescribed trust estate, includes a beneficial interest, however described, in any of the income or property of the trust estate’. On appeal to the Federal Court, Davies J held that the EISS trust was a Continue reading

Southern Han Breakfast Point Pty Ltd (in liq) v Lewence Construction Pty Ltd

Matthew Bell, ‘Cashflow is the “Lifeblood” of the Construction Industry: Has the High Court Applied a Torniquet? Southen Han Breakfast Point Pty Ltd (in liq) v Lewence Construction Pty Ltd‘ (23 December 2016).

The High Court has allowed an appeal against a decision of the New South Wales Court of Appeal on jurisdictional error in the context of a building commission adjudication over a construction contract and ‘reference date’ requirements. Following the collapse of a building agreement between the parties, an adjudicator ordered the appellant company to make payments to the respondent builder in recognition of progress on the works. Section 8(1) of the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) provides that ‘[o]n and from each reference date under a construction contract’, Continue reading