Yesterday’s new decision on civil procedure and insurers is not the only significant ruling of the High Court this week. Wednesday’s day-long hearing of a pre-trial application by accused promoter of foreign incursions, Hamdi Alqudsi, ended with the following statement by French CJ:
At least a majority of the Court is of the opinion that the following order should be made:
1. The question “Are ss 132(1) to (6) of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW) incapable of being applied to the Applicant’s trial by s 68 of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth) because their application would be inconsistent with s 80 of the Constitution”, should be answered “Yes”.
2. The motion is dismissed.
The reasons of the Court will be published at a later date.
The effect of these orders is that Alqudsi’s trial will be by a jury of his peers, rather than by judge alone as he preferred. The orders also strongly suggest a rejection by a majority of the High Court of an effort by Alqudsi, broadly supported by the Commonwealth and four states, to overturn or limit a thirty-year old 3-2 ruling by the High Court that effectively gave prosecutors, but not courts or defendants, the power to opt for a judge-alone trial of serious federal crimes.The Court’s majority holding in 1986’s Brown, although certainly a plausible reading of the bare text of s80 of the Constitution, is reviled by many as a perversion of one of the Constitution’s few apparent protections of human rights. However, we won’t know quite what the Court has said about s80 until the Court’s reasons emerge in next month or so.
Of more immediate interest is why the High Court opted to make its orders immediately Continue reading →