The High Court has allowed an appeal against a decision of the Full Federal Court on workers compensation and the meaning of ‘injury’ in the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth). The appellant, a former RAAF officer cadet, began to experience symptoms similar to vertigo that could not be diagnosed specifically, and which gradually arose after he received various vaccinations during the course of his employment. The FCAFC held that the Tribunal and a single Federal Court judge erred in concluding that the established definition of injury as a Continue reading
Daily Archives: 11 May 2016
Badenach v Calvert
The High Court has allowed an appeal against a decision of the Supreme Court of Tasmania on the professional duties of lawyers in the context of a will dispute. The first appellant, a solicitor, prepared a will that was to pass all of the testator’s estate to the respondent. After the testator died it emerged that the appellant’s firm (the second appellant here) had prepared two wills in 1984, one of which included a bequest to an estranged daughter. The daughter successfully sued for a maintenance provision out of the estate and was awarded a significant portion of it plus legal costs. The respondent then Continue reading
News: Reading the special tea leaves
We are now nearly two months into the High Court’s new process for determining special leave applications. Pending a fuller review after Friday’s hearings, a potential pattern has emerged that may reveal, a day in advance of the Court’s formal ruling, whether cases that have been listed for orders without an oral hearing will be granted special leave. If correct, then that means that there is a sign this evening that special leave will be granted tomorrow morning in the high profile appeal by Queensland prosecutors against an appellate ruling by that state’s Court of Appeal reducing Gerard Baden Clay’s conviction for murder to manslaughter. Continue reading
News: Court ruling on Senate voting this Friday
Yesterday’s High Court’s judgment delivery notification service (an email list) includes the following announcement:
Please be advised that the High Court will deliver the following judgments:
Friday, 13 May 2016 at 10:00 am in Court No. 2 Parkes Place, Canberra
Day v Australian Electoral Officer for the State of South Australia & Anor (S77/2016)
Madden & Ors v. Australian Electoral Officer for the State of Tasmania & Ors (S109/2016)
These judgments are a pair of constitutional challenges by Senator Bob Day and Tasmanian senate candidate Peter Madden (both of the Family First Party) to amendments made to the Commonwealth Electoral Act in March 2016 to some aspects of the system for voting for senators. A successful challenge would (most likely) mean that the coming federal election would be governed by the previous rules for Senate voting, which have been criticised for permitting candidates with little direct support to be elected through complex deals with other parties about how ‘above the line’ votes for particular parties are dealt with. Such a ruling would be one of the apex court’s most dramatic recent interventions in national politics.
There has been no shortage of detailed analysis of the arguments put forward by Day and Madden. Most predict that the challenge will fail because of the weakness of the arguments put forward. In my view, the Court’s own conduct since the hearing also strongly suggests that the challenge will fail. Continue reading