Two judgments published yesterday by Gageler J reveal that previously suppressed High Court events in mid-January involved an application by former NSW Legislative Councillor Eddie Obeid to delay and perhaps ultimately prevent his trial on a charge of misconduct in public office. In  the first of yesterday’s judgments, Obeid v The Queen [2016] HCA 9, Gageler J explained his reasons for refusing Obeid’s request to stay his trial until the High Court had considered his application for special leave to appeal the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal’s rejection of his pre-trial arguments (that his parliamentary position at the time of the alleged public misconduct either fell outside of the scope of the offence charged or meant that only the Legislative Council could try it.) In the second, Obeid v The Queen [No 2] [2016] HCA 10, Gageler J explained why both the fact of Obeid’s application for special leave and a stay and Gageler J’s ruling rejecting the stay were not published by the High Court until now: it was because Gageler J himself suppressed that information (at the ex-politician’s request.)That explains why the relevant court list only revealed that an application for an application for a non-publication order was to be heard, but not who made the application or what it was about.

The two sets of reasons for judgment from Gageler J explain the events and his reasoning in considerable and very useful detail. Continue reading →