Alley v Gillespie

The High Court has answered questions in a stated case brought by a common informer challenge to the capacity of a member of the House of Representatives elected at the July 2016 federal election. Section 3 of the Common Informers (Parliamentary Disqualifications) Act 1975 (Cth) provides that any person who has sat in Parliament ‘while he or she was a person declared by the Constitution to be incapable of so sitting’ is liable to pay ‘any person who sues for it in the High Court’ a sum of money. The defendant was declared elected as a member of the House of Representatives on 20 July 2016. On 7 July 2017, the plaintiff commenced proceedings under the Common Informers Act, contending that the defendant was incapable of sitting as an MP because he holds shares in a company that leased premises to Australia Post, contrary to s 44(v) of the Constitution. After a query about whether the High Court has jurisdiction to decide the anterior question of the defendant’s eligibility to sit as an MP, Bell J formulated the questions for the Full Court as follows:

(1) Can and should the High Court decide [in this proceeding] whether the defendant was a person declared by the Constitution to be incapable of sitting as a Member of the House of Representatives for the purposes of section 3 of the [Common Informers Act]?

(2) If the answer to question (1) is yes, is it the policy of the law that the High Court should not issue subpoenas in this proceeding directed to a forensic purpose of assisting the plaintiff in his attempt to demonstrate that the defendant was a person declared by the Constitution to be incapable of sitting as a Member of the House of Representatives for the purposes of section 3 of the Common Informers Act?

The Court unanimously answered Question 1 ‘no’, and consequently it was not necessary to answer Question 2.

The joint judges (Kiefel CJ, Bell, Keane and Edelman JJ) held that whether the defendant is incapable of sitting as an MP is a question to be determined by the House of Representatives, unless it resolves to refer the matter to the Court of Disputed Returns. This answer to Question 1 is determined by ss 46 and 47, and their relation to s 44, of the Constitution. Section 46 Continue reading

Re Kakoschke-Moore

The High Court, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns, has decided a matter referred to it by the Senate over the eligibility of two South Australian senate nominees. Skye Kakoschke-Moore and Timothy Storer who were third and fourth in the Nick Xenophon Team order of senate candidates for the 2016 federal election. Following that election, on 4 August, Kakoschke-Moore was returned as a senator for South Australia. On 3 November 2017, NXT resolved to expel Storer from the party, and by 6 November he purported to resign from the party. On 22 November, Kakoschke-Moore resigned as a senator after receiving confirmation from the United Kingdom Home Office that she was a British citizen. The Senate then resolved on 27 November to refer to the High Court the question of whether, by reason of s 44(i) of the Constitution, which provides that any person who is a subject or citizen of a foreign power shall be incapable of being chosen as a senator, there was a vacancy in the Senate for the place for which Kakoschke-Moore was returned. On 30 November, Kakoschke-Moore submitted the form to renounce her UK citizenship, and received confirmation on 6 December from the Home Office that her renunciation was effective on that date.

On 24 January 2018, Nettle J declared that Kakoschke-Moore was incapable of being chosen or sitting by reason of s 44(i). Nettle J also reserved three further questions for the Full Court’s determination, which the Court answered on 13 February (see order below), delivering its reasons on 21 March.

The Court unanimously held that the vacancy left by Kakoshcke-Moore should be filled by a special count of the votes cast on 2 July 2016; that Kakoschke-Moore’s renunciation of her British citizenship in December 2017 does not render her capable of now being chosen to fill the vacancy; and that Storer should not be excluded from the special count.

On questions one and two, the Court rejected Kakoschke-Moore’s contentions that the Court should declare her elected because she has now renounced her Continue reading

Craig v The Queen

The High Court has unanimously dismissed appeal against a decision of the Queensland Court of Appeal on a defendant’s decision not to testify in the context of a domestic violence murder conviction. Although he told his solicitors that the killing was an accident that occurred after the victim attacked him, his defence at trial instead relied on his police interview that described the killing as a deliberate attack that occurred in the heat of the moment. The defendant’s reasons for not testifying were evidenced in the following signed instructions he gave to his solicitor before the trial:

I am not relying on self defence or provocation as defence for tactical or legal reasons. Firstly, I did not raise these defences in my interview to police and secondly it would require me to give further evidence if such defences were to be raised. I have already given my preliminary view that I do not wish to give evidence as I do not want to be cross-examined about my previous criminal history.

On appeal, the defendant’s trial counsel explained that the advice was based on a number of contingencies that might arise during the defendant’s testimony – imputations against the police or the victim, assertions of his good character or the substance of his defence that the killing was an accident – which might allow the introduction of his earlier conviction for a home invasion where a person was fatally stabbed, but admitted that he had not told the defendant that the trial judge would have to give leave for that to occur. The QCA held that the trial counsel’s advice was incorrect, but dismissed the defendant’s appeal because the decision not to testify was a sound, forensic decision where the wrong advice was merely ‘an additional, but inaccurately expressed, reason’.

A unanimous High Court consisting of all seven judges rejected the defendant’s argument that he could not be held to a forensic decision that was informed by incorrect legal advice. Continue reading