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 →

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 →