News: Qld bikie laws challenge set for lengthy hearing in September

Last week, the High Court held two directions hearings in Kuczborski v The State of Queensland, the long-expected constitutional challenge to multiple laws enacted by the Queensland Parliament in the early hours of 16th October last year as a response to a Gold Coast ‘brawl’ nineteen days earlier. In last Monday’s hearing, Keane J revealed that the High Court hoped to schedule the full hearing in Brisbane in the first week of September. Queensland’s new Solicitor-General, noting that the case would require a day of arguments each by the challenger and Queensland and may attract interventions from many other Attorneys-General, suggested that the hearing would take ‘at least three days’. A four-day hearing would be the second one this year. As I noted last month on the chaplaincy hearing’s fourth day, the two previous four-day matters in the High Court were in 2009 and 2006.

The length of this matter may be less to do with its significance or controversy, and rather is likely due to the number of laws being challenged and the number of grounds. Continue reading