Friday’s special leave hearings marked Hayne J’s final sitting as a judge, ending his seventeen year run on the High Court bench. The Melbourne hearings where Hayne J sat only granted leave in three matters (two closely linked), while the simultaneous Sydney hearings added a further four. The cases the High Court will eventually hear appeals from are: Continue reading
Opinions
Selig v Wealthsure Pty Ltd
The High Court has unanimously allowed an appeal from a decision of the Full Federal Court relating to the scheme for proportionate liability under pt 7.10 divs 2–2A (ss 1041H–1041S) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). The appellants were victims of a Ponzi scheme that their financial advisers Continue reading
News: The High Court splits evenly again
Today, the High Court issued its judgment in the last of three six-judge decisions heard in the months before Crennan J’s retirement. As I discussed in this piece in The ConversatIon last December, even-numbered benches are a sporadic, but persistent, by-product of the Court’s composition:
This same problem arises each and every time a High Court judge approaches retirement. Indeed, it’s happening right now. The Court is scheduled to hear six judge cases in important matters through to June next year because two High Court judges are retiring in succession. Any one of them could be another tie. Cases already at risk of being resolved, perhaps irreversibly, by a tie breaker include regulatory action over Sydney’s radio hoax tragedy, a native title claim over a World War Two training ground, and the aftermath of the collapsed tourism, property and finance group, Octaviar bankruptcy.
The radio hoax and bankruptcy cases were resolved unanimously. However, as I feared last year, today’s native title decision was a tie, Continue reading
Queensland v Congoo
Jeremy Gans, ‘News: The High Court Splits Evenly Again’ (13 May 2015).
The High Court has dismissed an appeal from the decision of the Full Federal Court, in which the FCAFC held that military orders made during the Second World War did not extinguish native title rights.The Court split 3:3, which, due to s 23 of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth), means the FCAFC’s decision dismissing Queensland’s appeal stands. Continue reading
News: Over a dozen High Court holdings abolished in Victoria
Yesterday, Victoria’s Parliament passed a law that overturns over a significant number of High Court holdings on the law governing criminal trials. The notes to the Jury Directions Bill 2015 state that it ‘abolishes’ (or confirms the prior abolition of) rules stated by the High Court in the following cases:
- Pemble v R [1971] HCA 20, Gilbert v R [2000] HCA 15 and R v Nguyen [2010] HCA 38, on jury directions on defences, offences and bases for complicity that were not argued by the prosecution or defence.
- Edwards v R [1993] HCA 63 and Zoneff v R [2000] HCA 28, on jury directions on so-called ‘consciousness of guilt’ evidence.
- Longman v R [1989] HCA 60, Crampton v R [2000] HCA 60 and Doggett v R [2001] HCA 46, on jury directions on how the defence may have been disadvantaged due to the time elapsed between an alleged offence and the trial
- Weissensteiner v R [1993] HCA 65, Azzopardi v R [2001] HCA 25 and Dyers v R [2002] HCA 45, on jury directions on the defendant’s failure to explain evidence or to call particular witnesses at the trial
- Kilby v R [1973] HCA 30 and Crofts v R [1996] HCA 22, on jury directions on the credibility of rape complaint evidence
- Shepherd v R [1990] HCA 56, on the proof of facts that are indispensable to the prosecution case.
The BIll also refines other aspects of the law on jury directions that have repeatedly been addressed in the High Court, including directions on so-called ‘similar fact’ evidence, identification evidence and the meaning of ‘proof beyond reasonable doubt’.
The sheer number of cases addressed by the BIll is only part of the story. Continue reading
Lindsay v The Queen
The High Court has allowed an appeal from a decision of the South Australian Supreme Court relating to the provocation defence. The appellant was convicted of murdering Mr Negre who had made homosexual advances towards him, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Lindsay’s primary line of defence was that it had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt that Continue reading
Uelese v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
The High Court has allowed an appeal against a decision of the Full Federal Court on new information presented to a tribunal. Uelese was born in Samoa, moved to New Zealand when he was three and became a citizen. After moving to Australia in 1998, he was granted a temporary visa entitling him to remain in Australia provided he remained a Continue reading
A Statutory Exception to Immediate Indefeasibility Explained: Cassegrain v Gerard Cassegrain & Co Pty Ltd
Tolstoy famously starts Anna Karenina with the line: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” There is nothing quite so unhappy as a dispute between family members which ends up in court. In Cassegrain v Gerard Cassegrain & Co Pty Ltd, the dispute was between siblings who all had interests in the family company, Gerard Cassegrain & Co. The dispute before the High Court was the latest in a long line which began when the family patriarch, Gerard Cassegrain, died in 1993. Gerard and his wife had six children. Gerard’s second child, Claude, was the appellant in this case. The dispute involved certain land which Claude had registered in his and his wife’s name, and then solely in his wife’s name.
In Australia, we have Torrens title. Torrens title is often said to have the benefit of indefeasibility, which means that when a person becomes the registered proprietor of land, that title is not subject to any unregistered interests which may have existed before registration. This means that a person who becomes the registered proprietor of a Torrens interest can be secure about their transaction; they will not be subject to any unknown pre-existing interests. However, it may operate unfairly to those who have pre-existing interests in the land. Consequently, there are a number of limited exceptions to indefeasibility, including the fraud exception. This was the exception which was considered in Cassegrain. Continue reading
News: July constitutional law conference will include focus on Hayne J
One of the many traditions when the guard changes at the High Court is reviews of the outgoing judge’s contribution to the law. At his final special leave hearing in Sydney two Fridays ago, members of the NSW profession spoke to Hayne J’s role, and further similar occasions will doubtless follow in Melbourne and Canberra. Alongside such ceremonial efforts, some (but not all) High Court judges also find themselves the topic of a conference or panel. In Hayne J’s case, such an examination will occur as part of a constitutional law conference to be held by Melbourne Law School’s Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies on July 23 and 24.
The conference will include two events specific to Hayne J. Continue reading
News: Four new special leave grants
In sittings on Friday, the High Court granted special leave to appeal the following four decisions:
- Commissioner of Taxation v Australian Building Systems Pty Ltd (in liq) [2014] FCAFC 133 concerns the taxation obligations of liquidators. The full court of the Federal Court held that a liquidator who sold a bankrupt company’s property was not required to withhold an amount from the proceeds to pay the company’s capital gains tax, because the liquidator had not received an assessment requiring it to pay the tax.
- R v Smith [2014] QCA 277 is an appeal against Smith’s conviction for a 1990 rape. The Queensland Court of Appeal dismissed all of Smith’s complaints, including the trial judge’s decision to permit the jury to reach a 11:1 majority verdict. It held that the trial judge was not obliged to disclose to the parties information from the jury about the state of their deliberations prior to permitting a majority verdict, characterising a recent Victorian decision to the contrary as clearly wrong.
- State of New South Wales v Fuller-Lyons [2014] NSWCA 424 concerns a tragic accident from 2001 where an 8 year-old with a cognitive impairment fell out of a train travelling at 100 km/h. The NSW Court of Appeal overturned the trial judge’s finding that the accident was due to the train station attendant’s failure to notice the child’s arm protruding from a door as it pulled away from Morisset station, holding that the evidence was equally consistent with the child propping open the door with a less visible object.
- WZARH v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2014] FCAFC 137 concerns the obligation to provide an oral hearing to an applicant for a protection visa. The full court of the Federal Court held that the applicant, who had been given an oral hearing before an independent merits reviewer, had a legitimate expectation to a further oral hearing after a new independent merits reviewer was appointed.
News: Justice Michelle Gordon’s unsurprising appointment
A long rumoured appointment to the High Court was announced yesterday:
Today, his Excellency the Governor-General accepted the advice of the Government to appoint the Honourable Michelle Marjorie Gordon, a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia, as the next Justice of the High Court of Australia. Justice Gordon will replace the Honourable Justice Kenneth Hayne AC, who will reach the statutory retirement on 5 June 2015.
Very much like Hayne J’s own appointment in 1997, Gordon J’s is entirely orthodox given the usual criteria of merit and geographic (and, in Gordon J’s case, gender) diversity on the Court. Like Hayne J (whose appointment by the Howard government was also ‘not unexpected in legal circles’), Gordon J’s appointment is perceived by some to be consistent with the federal government’s conservative politics. In contrast to the recent novelty of Nettle J’s status as the Court’s oldest appointee, Gordon J (aged 50) is the Court’s youngest appointee since Gaudron J (aged 44 in 1987), a distinction held until now by Hayne J (appointed at age 52.)
Justices Gordon and Hayne have one more thing in common: Continue reading
Cascade Coal Pty Ltd v New South Wales; Duncan v New South Wales; NuCoal Resources Ltd v New South Wales
The High Court has decided three related matters each challenging the constitutional validity of sch 6A of the Mining Act 1992 (NSW) on various bases. Following a finding by the Independent Commission Against Corruption that directors and shareholders of Cascade Coal Continue reading
Independent Commission against Corruption v Cunneen
A majority of the High Court has dismissed appeal from the decision of the NSWCA relating to the powers of the Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) under the Independent Commission against Corruption Act 1988 (NSW). Following a motor vehicle accident, the first and second respondents allegedly advised the third respondent to pretend Continue reading
A short obituary of John Toohey by Justice James Edelman
I was in Brisbane on 10 April 2015 this week when I heard the heart-wrenching news that the Honourable John Leslie Toohey AC QC had passed away the previous evening. Although I knew his death was imminent I was still overwhelmed with sadness. John Toohey was a humble and gentle man from whom, and about whom, I never heard an ill word spoken. He was a gentleman in every sense. He talked with crowds and kept his virtue. He walked with Kings but never lost the common touch.
I had barely graduated from university when I began work for John in 1997. It was, and remains, for me, an unimaginably fortunate start to a legal career. John had an extraordinary intellect. He was a wonderful teacher. And most of all, he had a human touch without match. In court this manifested itself in a deep respect for his colleagues, for counsel and for his staff. I came to work for him as a fresh-faced graduate. His intellectual ability, his legal knowledge and his judgement intimidated me. But for the 12 month period of my associateship he treated me, as he did all of his law graduate associates, as an equal. For the two decades that followed, he and his incredible wife, Loma, remained mentors and confidants, and treasured friends.
When Dr Barnett asked me to write this short obituary to honour John Toohey, I accepted un oeil qui rit et un oeil qui pleure. The laughter was prompted by my knowledge that John had already read much of the obituary that I would write. Following his retirement in 1998, Natalie Gray and I wrote a short biography of him for the Journal of Judicial Administration. We had just completed a year as his final associates. John had retired from the High Court and we wanted to express our sentiments of the extraordinary esteem in which we held him, our pride in his powerful sense of service, and our respect for his empathy and compassion. He sent us a warm note of thanks. With his usual dry wit he told us that he was particularly grateful to be given the privilege of reading his obituary. Natalie and I returned to the subject again for the entry we authored on John Toohey in the Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia. With his wry smile he made another remark about our calling as obituary writers. Continue reading
News: Bank fees back to High Court
In December 2013, I predicted that the now long-running case involving bank fees would end up again before the High Court. That prediction appears to be about to come true.
In February 2014, after the High Court’s earlier decision in Andrews v Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited [2012] HCA 30, Federal Court judge Gordon J decided that most of the disputed fees were not penalties, apart from late credit card payment fees (as I posted here). Yesterday, in a resounding victory for the banks, the Full Federal Court in Paciocco v Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited [2015] FCAFC 50 held that none of the fees were penalties, including the late payment fees. Moreover, none of the fees were unconscionable or unfair.
The Full Federal Court overturned her Honour’s judgment with regard to the late payment fees on the basis that she incorrectly looked at whether the fees paid by Mr Paciocco and his company were ex post (after the event) exorbitant and extravagant, rather than looking at the greatest ex ante (predictable) loss which could have flowed from the breach and assessing the reasonableness of the fees in that light (see [51]-[52] of Allsop CJ’s judgment, with which Besanko J and Middleton J agreed in separate judgments). In light of yesterday’s decision, the plaintiffs have indicated that they intend to appeal to the High Court. The Age reports today:
After ANZ’s appeal was allowed on Wednesday, Maurice Blackburn’s national head of class actions, Andrew Watson, who is representing customers, said he would appeal against the Federal Court’s ruling in the High Court:”Obviously we’re still digesting the details of what’s a very large decision, but based on what we’ve read, we think there are grounds for appeal and we will be making an application for special leave to appeal to the High Court,” he said.
“It is perhaps appropriate that Australia’s largest consumer class action will ultimately be determined by Australia’s highest court, and as a result of today’s decision, that’s where we’re headed…”
Meanwhile, the banks are hoping that their latest win will signal the end of the litigation. I predict that there’s scant chance of that.
News: Nettle J’s first judgment
Today, in his first judgment on the High Court, Nettle J explained why a federal incentive scheme for reducing greenhouse gas emissions was constitutional, a conclusion that most constitutional lawyers would have predicted. Even non-lawyers could have readily predicted what the remainder of the bench would say:
FRENCH CJ. I agree with the answers given by Nettle J to the questions posed in the Special Case for the reasons which his Honour gives.
HAYNE J. I agree with Nettle J.
KIEFEL J. I agree with Nettle J.
BELL J. I agree with Nettle J.
GAGELER J. I agree with Nettle J.
KEANE J. I agree with the judgment of Nettle J.
Queensland Nickel Pty Limited v Commonwealth of Australia [2015] HCA 12 is the latest in a tradition of sorts, where the High Court periodically forgoes its usual practice of presenting judgments where multiple judges agree (and have nothing further to add) as jointly authored by all of them, in favour of one judge presenting the judgment and the rest giving individual pro forma concurrences.
Although seemingly never officially acknowledged, the practice appears to be a way for the Court’s judges to mark the arrival of a new judge on the bench. Continue reading
Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia v Queensland Rail Ltd
The High Court has decided a constitutional matter involving members of ten Queensland unions who were employed by Queensland Rail Ltd. Those unions had concluded two industrial relations agreements with Queensland Rail Ltd under Continue reading
Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd v Commonwealth
The High Court has decided a constitutional matter examining whether the effect of ’emissions-intensive trade-exposed’ activities under the Clean Energy Regulations 2011 (Cth) is to give preference to one State over another contrary to s 99 of the Australian Constitution. The plaintiff nickel producers contended that there were Continue reading
News: Five new appeals to be heard
Last Friday, the Court held special leave hearings in Sydney and (for the first time in four years) Adelaide. There was only one successful application for leave to appeal in Adelaide, but it is an especially interesting criminal law matter, while three of the other four matters granted leave in Sydney concern areas of law currently or recently before the Court: Continue reading
Fortress Credit Corporation (Australia) II Pty Ltd v Fletcher
The High Court has dismissed an appeal from the NSW Court of Appeal in another matter relating to the Octaviar investment group collapse. As with the related matters, this challenge relates to extensions of time under s 588FF of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) which allows a liquidator to apply Continue reading
CMB v Attorney-General (NSW)
The High Court has allowed an appeal against the decision of the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal on s 5D of the Criminal Appeal Act 1912 (NSW). That section allows the Attorney-General to Continue reading
Grant Samuel Corporate Finance Pty Ltd v Fletcher; JPMorgan Chase Bank National Association v Fletcher
The High Court has allowed two appeals arising out of a New South Wales Court of Appeal decision relating to insolvency, voidable transactions, and the extension of time within which parties can bring proceedings. After the Octaviar investment group went Continue reading
News: Report that Bell J recused herself from Cunneen case
This Wednesday, the High Court held an all-day hearing on the closely watched dispute between the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption and prosecutor Margaret Cunneen over the legality of the former’s inquiry into allegations that the latter perverted the course of justice in a traffic matter involving her son’s girlfriend. Reports during the day emphasised criticisms from the bench of ICAC’s barrister, but of more interest is an early morning report in the Sydney Morning Herald early that focused on the composition of the bench itself:
When the High Court convenes to hear the hotly anticipated legal battle between the NSW corruption watchdog and Crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen on Wednesday, one judge will not be on the bench. Fairfax Media understands Justice Virginia Bell will not be part of the five-judge bench hearing the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s challenge to a ruling shutting down its inquiry into the silk because she has previously made a ruling unfavourable to Ms Cunneen.
The transcript for Wednesday’s all-day hearing shows that the five-judge bench consisted of French CJ , Hayne J, Kiefel J, Gageler J and Nettle J. Justice Hayne’s presence is something of a surprise, given that he must retire in three months (in apparent contrast to Crennan J, who heard her last full bench matter over three-and-a-half months before her retirement.) On the other hand, Bell J’s absence from the bench was seemingly no surprise, a fact that raises two interesting issues about the High Court itself. Continue reading
Australian Communications and Media Authority v Today FM (Sydney) Pty Ltd
The High Court has unanimously allowed an appeal from the decision of the Full Federal Court relating to the powers of the Australian Communications and Media Authority. Following the suicide of a London nurse who was the target of ‘hoax call’ segment Continue reading
Korda v Australian Executor Trustees (SA) Ltd
The High Court has allowed an appeal from the Victorian Court of Appeal relating to an investment scheme in various forestry companies that have since been liquidated. The trustee of the investment scheme argued that a 1964 trust deed should limit Continue reading
Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Re-Writing Law: Book Review
By Professor Ann O’Connell
Do women think differently to men? Do women lawyers think differently to their male counterparts? More importantly, do women judges judge differently to male judges? A new book, the product of an Australian Research Council grant, seeks to deal with this question. The book is Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Re-Writing Law, edited by legal academics Professor Heather Douglas, Dr Francesca Bartlett, Dr Trish Luker and Professor Rosemary Hunter. The book draws inspiration from similar projects in the United Kingdom and Canada, but, as its title indicates, the focus is on Australian judicial decisions. The purpose of the project is to investigate the ‘possibilities, limits and implications of a feminist approach to legal decision making’.
The Australian project involved 55 (mainly) academic lawyers who were tasked with revisiting and rewriting significant decisions in their chosen field which were ‘influenced by, or alternatively, offended feminist principles’. Most, but not all the contributors are women. Most, but not all of the judgments are High Court decisions. The oldest judgment is from 1963 but the majority are more recent cases: 17 of the 26 decisions being handed down since 2000. This is significant because the task was not about updating the judgments to reflect contemporary social mores, but rather it was to step into the shoes of the judge (or judges) as if deciding the case afresh but at the time of the original decision.
The book contains 26 rewritten judgments covering a range of legal subjects. Some of the areas covered might be regarded as covering predictable ‘feminist’ subjects — family law, sexual offences and discrimination law — but the book also deals with less obviously feminist areas of law such as immigration, tort law, taxation, constitutional law, environment and indigenous issues. Four themes were identified to group the judgments: public law; private law; crime and evidence and interpreting equality. The contributors comprised a ‘judge’ (or ‘judges’) who rewrote the judgment and a commentator who provided the context for the original decision and a discussion of the rewritten judgment. Continue reading
News: Five high profile cases granted special leave
In Friday’s special leave hearings (the first since Nettle J joined the bench), the High Court granted special leave to appeal to five cases. That is the highest number of special leave applications granted in a single day since May last year. Moreover, all five are high profile matters: Continue reading
Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police v Zhao
The High Court has unanimously dismissed an appeal from a decision of the Victorian Court of Appeal to refuse to stay civil forfeiture proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Cth). The first and second respondents, a husband and wife, were allegedly Continue reading
Plaintiff S297/2013 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection; Plaintiff M150/2013 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection
The High Court has issued a writ of peremptory mandamus commanding the Minister to grant the plaintiff a permanent protection visa. In June 2014, the High Court upheld a challenge to the validity of the Migration Amendment (Unauthorised Maritime Arrival) Regulation 2013 (Cth), known as the PPV Regulation, in two related matters. The Court held the Minister’s determinations in relation to Plaintiffs S297/2013 and M150/2013 were invalid and issued a writ of mandamus in each instance directing the Minister to consider and determine each visa application according to law. Continue reading
Lavin v Toppi
The High Court has unanimously dismissed an appeal from the decision of the New South Wales Court of Appeal in Lavin v Toppi. Lavin and Toppi were principals of a company Continue reading
News: Nettle J joins the bench
On Tuesday morning, the High Court held a ceremonial sitting for the swearing-in of Nettle J as the Court’s fiftieth judge, attended by all six of his future colleagues, thirteen of his former colleagues on the Supreme Court of Victoria, nine of Australia’s eleven Chief Justices and a multitude of senior lawyers and former judges. Video of the ceremony (the first such to be posted on the High Court’s website under its new audio-visual policy) captures the moment when Nettle J strode directly up to French CJ and announced his commissioning by the Governor-General. He took an oath of allegiance and of office – a choice also taken by every other new High Court judge in the past two decades bar one – and then his seat on the bench. As in all High Court ceremonies, the bulk of proceedings were taken up with speeches from senior lawyers lauding the new judge, beginning with federal Attorney-General George Brandis, who said that he ‘can scarcely remember an appointment to this Court which was so seamless, so free of controversy, and so universally appraised.’
While the bulk of the ceremony looked to Nettle J’s past, its last fourteen minutes provide a glimpse of the Court’s future. Two parts of Nettle J’s swearing-in remarks are especially illuminating. Continue reading
Cassegrain v Gerard Cassegrain & Co Pty Ltd
A majority of the High Court has allowed in part an appeal from the decision of the New South Wales Court of Appeal in Cassegrain, relating to the fraud exception to the indefeasibility of title. In a related judgment, the NSWCA found that Claude Cassegrain, a director Continue reading
News: Furore over AHRC President
Recently, Australian Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs has been under intense criticism, particularly by The Australian newspaper for her handling of an AHRC report involving a West Papuan man called John Basikbasik.Two points should be made at the outset. First, Triggs is not a judge, and accordingly her decision was not binding. The report contained recommendations which could be rejected by the Minister. Secondly, the Minister did in fact reject President Triggs’ recommendations in May 2014. Mr Basikbasik remains detained and will not receive the recommended compensation.
As these two recent articles in The Australian indicate, the criticisms are being made in the context of a wider furore about the timing of Triggs’ AHRC report into children in detention. Indeed, Richard Ackland has claimed that The Australian newspaper is focusing on the Basikbasik case for this reason. Academic opinion about the Basikbasik case has generally been on Triggs’ side, as prominent Australian international law scholars and others have written to express their support of Triggs’ determination in the Basikbasik case. Professor Mirko Bagaric of Deakin University was a rare exception, and expressed the view that the determination was in error because it took into account the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (‘ICCPR’). On Friday last week, The Australian published an article by Professor Ben Saul of Sydney University which was strongly in favour of Triggs. As Professor Saul points out, the definition of the “human rights” under s 3 of the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (Cth) expressly mentions the ICCPR as a source of such rights.
There is a High Court link to the furore, as the Basikbasik case came before the High Court in 2013, although he was called SZOQQ. Continue reading
News: Crennan J’s solo judgments
Justice Susan Crennan’s imminent retirement from the High Court inevitably invites reflections on her contribution while on the bench. According to Jane Needham SC, Crennan J ‘delivered 316 judgments’ in her nine years at the national court. However, only five of those judgments (two early judgments on wrongful life actions, and three constitutional judgments on elections and executive power) were mentioned in recent ceremonial sittings to mark her retirement. The key difficulty in assessing Crennan J’s contribution was alluded to in the judge’s own remarks at the Sydney ceremonial sitting:
From time to time, there is speculation about the authorship of joint judgments from this Court. Naturally, it is not always accurate. Earlier this year, Justice Kiefel on my right remarked of judgment writing, “Collegiality is not compromise”. In that spirit, may I take the goodwill expressed toward me this morning as an appreciation of the work of the Court as a whole.
By my count, Crennan J issued 28 sole-authored judgments while on the High Court, easily less than 10% of her total. In an extreme contrast, the last High Court judge to retire, Heydon J, issued twice that many such judgments in a single year on the bench (as part of a seventeen-month period where he never joined a judgment.)
Here is my list of Crennan J’s solo High Court judgments: Continue reading
CPCF v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection
Jeremy Gans, ‘Sri Lankan Case Becomes Less Urgent’ (29 July 2014).
Jeremy Gans, ‘News: Progress in Two Major Upcoming Cases’ (25 July 2014).
The High Court has decided a special case relating to the Government’s attempt to return up to 153 asylum seekers to Sri Lanka. On 7 July 2014 Crennan J issued an injunction to prevent Continue reading
Mind the Gaps! High Court Confirms Negligence Will Not Protect Economic Interests where Contractual Protection is Available
By Matthew Bell, Wayne Jocic and Rami Marginean
The central issue in Brookfield was one which is especially important given the proliferation of multi-use, multi-storey developments around Australia’s major population centres. This was whether the builder of an apartment complex owes a duty of care in negligence to protect the Owners’ Corporation (as agent for the owners of apartments in the building) from pure economic loss arising from latent defects in the common property of that building where those defects were structural, constituted a danger to persons or property in the vicinity or made the apartments uninhabitable. The High Court found that the builder owed no such duty, reversing the decision of the NSW Court of Appeal.
This result may be surprising to lay people or those not versed in construction law. For the reasons we set out below, we think that the Court’s approach is, to a certain extent, based on flawed assumptions as to the availability of legal protection for building owners by way of contractual negotiation or legislation. That said, the decision reflects the greater trend in Australian law in the past ten years to reverse the expansion of the duty of care in negligence, and to leave the question of liability to contract or legislative schemes. Moreover, the Court’s continued backing away from tortious liability is consistent with the view expounded by the Court’s most recent appointee, Justice Nettle, in a 2004 Continue reading
News: Man Haron Monis in the High Court
Opinions on High extends our condolences to those affected by this morning’s events in Sydney, especially the bereaved. In the aftermath of this tragedy, there will undoubtedly be close scrutiny of Man Haron Monis, the man said to be the assailant in the Lindt Cafe. As part of its initial analysis, today’s Sydney Morning Herald notes Monis’s recent litigation before the High Court of Australia:
It has been Monis’ ongoing legal battle over his conviction for penning the poisonous letters to the families of dead Australian soldiers between 2007 and 2009 that has consumed him. It is understood Monday’s siege followed an unsuccessful, last-ditch attempt in the High Court on Friday, December 12, to have the conviction overturned.
This post outlines the various hearings the High Court has held relating to Monis’s argument that the federal crime he was charged with – using a postal service to cause offence – is invalid under the Constitution’s implied freedom of political communication. Continue reading
Henderson v Queensland
The High Court has dismissed an appeal against a decision of the Queensland Court of Appeal relating to proceeds of crime legislation. In 2002, police found nearly $600,000 cash in Henderson’s car, Continue reading
News: High profile cases considered for special leave
On Friday, the High Court held its last special leave hearings for 2014. The media reports that French CJ has referred a closely watched case, Cunneen v Independent Commission Against Corruption [2014] NSWCA 421, where a majority of the NSW Court of Appeal stopped a corruption inquiry into allegations against a NSW prosecutor, to a full court hearing next year. However, various media reports have highlighted the Court’s refusal to hear appeals in three other high profile matters:
- Christian Youth Camps Limited & Ors v Cobaw Community Health Services Limited & Ors [2014] VSCA 7 is the Victorian Court of Appeal’s majority ruling earlier this year that a Christian youth camp operator breached that state’s Equal Opportunity Act when it refused to accommodate a gay youth support group.
- R v Loveridge [2014] NSWCCA 120 is a sentencing appeal by Kieran Loveridge, who killed Thomas Kelly with a single punch in Sydney’s Kings Cross in 2012 (and whose initial four-year non-parole period for that manslaughter prompted subsequent legislation imposing an eight-year mandatory minimum for assault causing death while intoxicated), against a seven-year non-parole period imposed following a Crown appeal.
- Ngo v R [2013] NSWCCA 142 is sentencing appeal by Phuong Canh Ngo, convicted of the murder of NSW Member of Parliament John Newman two decades ago, against his life sentence, imposed under a NSW sentencing provision enacted in between the murder and Ngo’s sentence.
In Friday’s hearings, the Court granted special leave in just two matters:
Commissioner of State Revenue v Lend Lease Development Pty Ltd
The High Court has allowed the appeals in several related matters on duties payable on land. Following sales of various parcels of land in Melbourne’s Docklands, the Commissioner of State Revenue Continue reading
Argos Pty Ltd v Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development
The High Court has partly allowed an appeal from the ACT Court of Appeal on whether corporate appellants have standing to bring an application under the s 5(1) of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1989 (ACT). Continue reading
News: Justice Geoffrey Nettle’s surprise appointment
Today brings an end to recent speculation about the next appointment to the High Court. The Australian reports:
GEOFFREY Nettle, a “brilliant” judge of the Victorian Court of Appeal, has been named as the Abbott government’s first appointment to the High Court. Justice Nettle will replace Justice Susan Crennan, who will retire from the bench on February 3, five months ahead of schedule. Attorney-General George Brandis made the announcement this morning at Parliament House in Canberra. He walked out of the room immediately after making the announcement without taking questions.
Justice Nettle’s appointment is unsurprising in many respects: he is a Victorian (replacing another Victorian, Crennan J), a graduate of the ANU, Melbourne Law School and Oxford (see Katy Barnett’s discussion of High Court judges’ education), a sitting judge (like most recent appointments) and (in my and many others’ opinions) one of the best judges in Australia. He is also male, meaning that the High Court’s number of female judges will drop to just two out of seven, but that number may be short lived depending on who replaces Hayne J next year.
And yet, the recent speculation about Crennan J’s replacement discounted Nettle J as a possibility for just one reason: his age. Justice Nettle’s wikipedia page states that he was born in 1950 (but does not specify a birthday), meaning he will be either 64 or 65 when he first sits, easily the oldest ever appointee to the High Court. Continue reading
Commissioner of Taxation v MBI Properties Pty Ltd
The High Court has unanimously allowed an appeal from a decision of the Full Federal Court on ‘increasing adjustments’ and the meaning of ‘supply’ under s 135-5 of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (Cth). Continue reading
Cantarella Bros Pty Ltd v Modena Trading Pty Ltd
A majority of the High Court has allowed an appeal against the decision of the Full Federal Court in Modena Trading Pty Ltd v Cantarella Bros Pty Ltd. Cantarella claimed that Modena had infringed its trademarks Continue reading
News: Unsuccessful High Court litigants succeed at the UN
Last week brought news that NSW prisoners Bronson Blessington and Matthew Elliot succeeded in a complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Now in their forties, the pair were teens when they raped and murdered Janine Balding in 1988 and were in their thirties when the High Court rejected their appeals against their life sentences in 2007. The Human Rights Committee’s finding – that a NSW law that barred their parole until they were near death violated their right against cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – was foreshadowed by Kirby J ten years ago during a constitutional challenge to similar laws:
At the time of the offence for which Mr Blessington was convicted and sentenced, he was 14 years of age…. On a true construction of the impugned law, Mr Blessington’s “possibility of release” is, in my view, a chimera, and deliberately so. If that is the case, the impugned law is in conflict with binding international obligations expressing universal human rights and fundamental freedoms.
However, Kirby J was the only High Court judge to hold that the laws were invalid. In 2012, the High Court unanimously rejected a challenge to even stricter laws to largely prevent the parole of Elliot, Blessington and eight other New South Wales prisoners, the subject of the Committee’s recent finding.
The UN Committee’s finding does not overturn or even bring into question the High Court’s rulings. Continue reading
No Duty to Detain Individuals with Severe Mental Health Problems: Hunter and New England Local Health District v McKenna
By Professor Bernadette McSherry
Mental health practitioners may be breathing a sigh of relief that the High Court has unanimously held that a New South Wales hospital and a psychiatrist in its employ held no duty of care to the relatives of a man who was killed by a recently discharged patient. While the judgment is confined to a consideration of the effect of a statutory provision on whether or not a common law duty of care exists, the finding has repercussions for the movement in modern mental health care towards a focus on recovery and human rights rather than purely on preventive detention.
Risk assessment and risk management of those with severe mental health problems is now a core part of mental health practice. Mental health laws in Australian states and territories generally enable the involuntary detention and treatment of those with mental health problems on the basis that the individual concerned needs to be prevented from causing serious harm to him or herself or to others.
The question of how mental health practitioners ought to determine whether someone is at risk of harming him or herself or others is subject to a vast amount of literature and debate: see here, here and here. It remains the case, however, that it is exceptionally difficult to predict whether a specific individual may be at risk of harming another, particularly when there has been no history of violent behaviour. Forensic psychiatrists Andrew Carroll, Mark Lyall and Andrew Forrester pointed out in a 2004 article that ‘[n]o method, clinical, actuarial or combined, achieves anywhere near 100% predictive power, whether short or long term risk is considered.’ (at 413).
The deaths of Stephen Rose and Phillip Pettigrove
Phillip Pettigrove was born in 1962 and had a long history of mental health problems. Continue reading
News: Crennan J stops hearing cases ahead of retirement
This week, Australians found out about Crennan J’s pending retirement in the usual way: a column by UNSW’s George Williams speculating on her replacement. (See here for Katy Barnett’s commentary.) Although there has been no official announcement, her decision to retire was clearly known to some members of the NSW legal profession, who organised a farewell for her last Friday. Close watchers of the Court will also have noticed two 6-member benches (all the Court’s judges other than Crennan J) in significant hearings last week concerning the Today FM nurse hoax and bankruptcy procedure. That is consistent with the usual practice where High Court judges stop hearing new cases months ahead of retirement. Justice Crennan will spend her remaining time on the bench hearing procedural and special leave applications, and writing opinions in her three outstanding reserved matters.
While Australians are well used to such goings-on every time a High Court judge retires, Canadians’ experience is quite different. Continue reading
News: Thoughts on new judges for the High Court
This morning, George Williams has a piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, noting that Crennan J and Hayne J will soon retire, and that Crennan J intends to step down from the Court on 2 February 2015. It is natural to predict who will replace the outgoing judges, although as Williams notes:
Every High Court appointment leads pundits to forecast who will be selected. Doing so can be fraught. The most worthy candidates often miss the cut, while others prove a surprise. As I have said elsewhere, predicting the next High Court justice is like trying to pick the winner of the Melbourne Cup, but without knowing who is in the field.
Williams notes that diversity, gender, ethnicity and geography are often taken into account in making new appointments. There has to be a balance between the judges from different States of Australia, and as the two outgoing judges are Victorian, it seems that at least one of the replacements is likely to be Victorian. Consequently Williams concludes:
If you were wanting to place a bet on Australia’s next High Court judge, the smart money would be on a serving judge from Victoria, aged 60 or under, with impeccable legal credentials. The person would also be favourably regarded in conservative circles and would not have a background of supporting the states. Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess.
News: Three new South Australian cases
The High Court today rejected all of the applications for special leave to appeal listed in its Sydney and Perth registries, but granted leave in three South Australian matters: Continue reading
News: The High Court issues a partial verdict on Qld’s ‘bikie’ laws
Today’s judgment in Kuczborski v Queensland dismissed a challenge to a package of laws passed over a year ago as the Queensland government’s response to a ‘brawl’ between two motorcycle gangs in the Gold Coast suburb of Broadbeach. The case definitively resolves (by a solid 6-1 majority) that a key part of the Queensland scheme (borrowed from a narrower regime in NSW) that subjects participants in (to date, 26) ‘declared’ criminal organisations to criminal laws limiting their public behaviour (including bans on public gatherings of participants, bans from particular addresses; and barring everyone from licensed premises if they are wearing particular clothes or patches) leaves Queensland’s courts’ ‘integrity’ intact.
However, the case does not resolve a number of other issues about the Queensland laws: Continue reading
Kuczborski v Queensland
Jeremy Gans, ‘News: Qld Bikie Laws Challenge Set for Lengthy Hearing in September’ (30 June 2014).
The High Court has decided a special case on the constitutional validity of Queensland’s Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act 2013 (Qld) and related provisions under various other law enforcement statutes dealing with restrictions on public association, licensing and clothing aimed at motorcycle clubs. Continue reading
Hunter and New England Local Health District v McKenna
The High Court has unanimously allowed an appeal from the New South Wales Court of Appeal’s decision in McKenna v Hunter and New England Local Health District. In 2004, Stephen Rose became concerned about the mental health of Continue reading
Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v SZSCA
James C Hathaway, ‘The Conundrum of Concealment: Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v SZSCA‘ (9 November 2014) (reposted from Reflaw)
A majority of the High Court has dismissed the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection’s appeal against the decision of the Full Federal Court in SZSCA. SZSCA fled Afghanistan after the Taliban threatened to kill him in retaliation for working as a truck driver for various aid agencies. Continue reading
The Conundrum of Concealment: Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v SZSCA [2013] FCAFC 155
The High Court’s decision in Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v SZSCA will be handed down on 12 November 2014. In expectation of the judgment we wanted to share this piece by Melbourne Law School Professorial Fellow and former Dean and current professor at Michigan Law School, James C. Hathaway, on the December 2013 Full Federal Court decision in the case. This post has been republished with permission from Reflaw.
By Professor James C. Hathaway
The Full Federal Court of Australia recently considered the refugee status of an Afghan who had worked for nearly a quarter century as a jewelry maker in Kabul, before deciding in 2007 to work instead as a self-employed truck driver. Initially, his work consisted of transporting such goods as wood, animal skins, and food across the country. But starting in January 2011, he agreed to begin hauling building materials from Kabul to Jaghori in order to supply reconstruction projects being undertaken by the government and international aid agencies. He took on this new work because “he was paid more” [21], noting that “there was not a lot of work and he had to support his family” [22]. When the Taliban threatened to kill him if he continued to transport building materials used in reconstruction, he fled Afghanistan and advanced a refugee claim in Australia.
The claimant reasonably argued that an adverse political opinion had been imputed to him by the Taliban, and that the Afghan government could not be counted on to shield him from the Taliban’s death threats. The Australian government contended, however, that he could avoid the risk by giving up truck driving and returning to his prior career as a jeweler. Counsel for the applicant countered that the applicant could not be compelled to give up his preferred work, and that if that work gave rise to a risk of being persecuted for reasons of an imputed political opinion, his refugee status should be recognized.
The majority of the Full Federal Court of Australia agreed with the applicant. Understanding the High Court of Australia to have ruled in S395 that a decision-maker “cannot require an asylum seeker to behave in a particular manner” [61] – the only relevant question being “whether an asylum seeker would not in fact behave in a particular matter upon his or her return” [61] – it was held that there was a duty to grant refugee status given the applicant’s unwillingness to resume his work as a jeweler in Kabul.
This decision continues a no doubt well-meaning, but analytically flawed, approach. Continue reading
Alphapharm Pty Ltd v H Lundbeck A/S
The High Court has, by majority, dismissed an appeal against a decision of the Full Federal Court dealing with the extension of the term of a patent on anti-depressant drugs, and the requirements for extending the time of those applications. Continue reading
News: Chief Justice writes to law deans about inappropriate communications
Justinian has posted what purports to be a copy of a letter French CJ wrote to the current head of the Council of Australian Law Deans ‘to express a concern about recent incidents in which legal academics have provided to the Court copies of papers which relate to matters pending before the Court’. In 2012, the Chief Justice publicly expressed ‘reservations’ about academic articles ‘produced with a view to influencing the development of the law in a pending case’, remarking: ‘I am not saying that this is improper but its value may be discounted to the extent that it smacks of advocacy.’ By contrast, the concern expressed in the present letter is not with whether or why such articles are written, but rather when and to whom they are communicated: ‘providing materials which are not accessible to the parties, a fortiori after the Court has reserved its decision, are inappropriate and inconsistent with the transparency of the judicial process’.
As French CJ noted in his 2012 speech, dialogues between courts and academics are sometimes made difficult by ‘differences of purpose, perspective and methodology between judicial reasoning and legal scholarship’. Continue reading
News: New appeals on liquidation and deportation
The two new special leave applications granted last Friday were from the following decisions:
- Fortress Credit Corporation (Australia) II Pty Ltd v Fletcher [2014] NSWCA 148, like another NSW matter that was granted leave in August, concerns the bankruptcy of the Octaviar investment group and a court’s power to extend the time limit for a liquidator to apply to void some of a company’s pre-bankruptcy dealings. In this case, a five-judge bench of the NSW Court of Appeal affirmed its own 2003 ruling permitting ‘shelf orders’ extending the time limit generally (rather than for specific dealings) and upheld the trial judge’s addition of the applicants (parties to some of the transactions with the bankrupt companies who were not present when the shelf order was made) to the proceedings to void the transactions.
- Uelese v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2013] FCAFC 86 concerns the statutory obligation to consider the interests of a non-citizen’s children in immigration decision-making. The federal Administrative Appeals Tribunal, affirming a decision to deport a New Zealand citizen with criminal convictions, only considered the interests of three of the man’s five Australian-resident children. The full court of the Federal Court held that a federal statute barred the Tribunal from considering the interests of his remaining two children, because their existence only emerged during the oral hearing and hence was not notified to the Minister in advance.
Amongst matters refused special leave was the issue of interim injunctions to stop Melbourne’s planned East-West Link, discussed here.
Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union v BHP Coal Pty Ltd
A 3:2 majority of the High Court has dismissed an appeal from a decision of the Full Federal Court relating to the dismissal of an employee engaged in industrial action who held a sign that read ‘No principles, SCABS, No guts’ which was deemed to be ‘offensive’ and contrary to BHP’s code of conduct. Continue reading
News: East West Link High Court case explainer
On Friday the project that has been the subject of much recent commentary in the context of the forthcoming Victorian parliamentary elections will return to the High Court in the case of Murphy v State of Victoria. Murphy is opposing the East West Link road and tunnel tollway. His substantive claim is that the State of Victoria and the statutory authority charged with administering the project has engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct contrary to the Australian Consumer Law. Murphy alleges that the State government’s claims and calculations about the economic benefit of the project are misleading or deceptive. He asserts that the project should therefore not proceed. The Victorian Court of Appeal found that the Murphy’s claims should be tried before the Supreme Court. The trial preparation process is expected to result in the Victorian government disclosing the document containing the so called ‘business case’ for the project, which continues to be kept secret. Continue reading
Gray v Richards
The High Court has partly allowed an appeal from a decision of the NSW Court of Appeal relating to the assessment of damages and fund management fees. Continue reading
News: Reflections on Tampa and CPCF at the Constitutional Reform Unit
We recently came across this excellent post at the University of Sydney’s Constitutional Critique blog on the upcoming case, CPFC v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection:
First came the victory, when in Pape it was held to authorise laws governing stimulus payments during the GFC. Then came the defeat, when in Williams (No 1) it was denied the capacity to authorise funding for chaplains in schools. Now non-statutory executive power (NSEP) is poised to make a comeback, in its most controversial and politically-charged instalment yet, CPCF v Minister for Border Protection and the Commonwealth. But whereas in previous cases the stakes were measured in dollar terms, this time the consequences of the alleged exercise of NSEP have a human face.
It will be very interesting to see whether the High Court takes the opportunity to consider the scope of non-statutory executive power (NSEP), or whether the unresolved issues in the Tampa case with regard to the Commonwealth’s NSEP will remain in that state.
Kentwell v The Queen; O’Grady v The Queen
The High Court has allowed two appeals from sentencing decisions of the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in Kentwell and O’Grady. Continue reading
Brookfield Multiplex Ltd v The Owners — Strata Plan No 61288
The High Court has unanimously allowed an appeal against the decision of the NSW Court of Appeal, in The Owners — Strata Plan No 61288 v Brookfield Australia Investments Ltd. Continue reading
Tajjour v State of New South Wales; Hawthorne v State of New South Wales; Forster v State of New South Wales
The High Court has held that s 93X of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) is not invalid. That section makes it an offence for a person to continue to ‘habitually consort’ with convicted offenders after receiving an ‘official warning’, either verbally or in writing, from a police officer. Continue reading
News: Death of alleged victim in Perry v R
This weekend saw the death of Kenneth Perry, thirty-two years after the High Court quashed his wife’s conviction for attempting to murder him. Perry died as he had lived for decades, staunchly maintaining that his wife played no role in several bouts of arsenic poisoning he suffered in the late 1970s. Emily Perry was never retried by South Australian prosecutors, while a further charge for the murder of her first husband laid by Victorian prosecutors was dropped in 1986.
The High Court’s judgment in Perry v R is famous for its bold stand against convictions based on so-called ‘similar fact’ evidence. Continue reading
News: Migration Bill targets High Court rulings
Last Thursday, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison introduced the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014 into the federal Parliament. While the headline issue is the return of temporary protection visas, the Bill contains many other provisions. Indeed, the Explanatory Memorandum observes that the ‘Bill fundamentally changes Australia’s approach to managing asylum seekers’. As asylum seeker law is regularly considered by the High Court, the Bill inevitably responds to a number of the Court’s decisions and is intended to reverse several of them.
The major change is contained in Schedule 5 (‘clarifying Australia’s international law obligations’), which is intended to reverse ‘a series of High Court decisions which have found that the Migration Act as a whole is designed to address Australia’s non-refoulement obligations’, Continue reading
News: Legal threat to state drug laws recedes
In last Friday’s hearings, the High Court refused special leave to two criminal defendants challenging the validity of NSW’s main drug offence: supplying, or knowingly taking part in the supply of, a prohibited drug. In refusing leave, the Court mostly put to rest doubts that have arisen in recent years about the continued operation of most state drug laws (and a number of other state criminal laws) that overlap with federal criminal laws.
The source of the recent doubts was a 2010 ruling by the High Court Continue reading
News: Supreme Court blog and Harold Ford Memorial Lecture
First, last year, we mentioned the possibility that the Victorian Supreme Court was going to start a blog. The blog has come to fruition and has just published its first substantive post, ‘The many challenges of modern common law litigation’ by Forrest J. The post appears to be further the court’s ambition of ‘creating greater community understanding’ about the law, as it is clear, (relatively) non-technical, conversational, and offers plenty of context about the issues discussed.
Secondly, for those interested in corporate law and securities regulation, Hayne J gave this year’s Harold Ford Memorial Lecture hosted by the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation. His lecture was entitled Directors’ Duties and a Company’s Creditors. The video is available on the CCLSR’s website here and on the University’s youtube channel. Hayne J’s paper has been accepted for publication in volume 38(2) of the Melbourne University Law Review which will be published before the end of 2014.
News: Three new appeals headed for the Court
In today’s combined Sydney and Melbourne special leave hearing, the Court granted leave to appeal the following three decisions: Continue reading
Plaintiff S4/2014 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection
The High Court has decided a separate special case that was originally joined to the cases of Plaintiff S297/2013 and Plaintiff M150/2013, recently decided by the Full Court. Continue reading
Maxwell v Highway Hauliers Pty Ltd
The High Court has dismissed an appeal against the decision of the WA Court of Appeal in Maxwell v Highway Hauliers Pty Ltd, relating to statutory provisions on the interpretation of insurance contracts. Continue reading
Commonwealth Bank of Australia v Barker
The High Court has allowed an an appeal from the decision of the Full Federal Court which recognised the existence in Australian law of an implied term of mutual trust and confidence between employers and employees. Continue reading
Injuries and Workplace Misadventure: Comcare v PVYW
By Clare McIlwraith
Imagine your employer sends you to a conference interstate. Your travel, expenses and accommodation are all organised and paid for. Your 9-to-5 days and dinners are occupied with conference events. But what of all the other time you have on your hands? It is the stuff of folklore and Hollywood movies (like the 2011 movie Cedar Rapids) that those other times are filled with adventure. But for Australian employees there now exists a limit on what can be done out of the office that will be protected under workplace insurance schemes.
In October 2013 the High Court, by a 4:2 majority, allowed an appeal by the federal government’s workplace insurer, Comcare, denying the Commonwealth government employee respondent, known by the identifier ‘PVYW’, workers’ compensation under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth) (SR&C Act).
PVYW had been sent to visit a regional office, and was required to stay overnight at a motel booked by the employer. While staying overnight at the motel, PVYW was struck in the face by a glass light fitting on the bed when it was pulled off the wall of the motel during sexual intercourse with a local acquaintance. Following the incident, PVYW claimed compensation for physical and subsequent psychological injuries under the SR&C Act.
The majority of the court held that the injury suffered by PVYW was not suffered ‘in the course of’ employment. This was because it was not caused through an activity encouraged or induced by the employer or was not considered ‘referable’ to a hotel stay. This last conclusion is perhaps surprising given the mythology of work trips and sex in hotel stays or because as Counsel for PVYW noted that sex is a universal incident of human life ([2013] HCATrans 169).
Although the SR&C Act only applies to Commonwealth government employees the decision will be relevant to all employees subject to workers compensation schemes because each scheme limits insurance recovery in similar (though in some cases more restrictive) ways (see [2013] HCATrans 114). Continue reading
News: Court takes on new native title case
The High Court has spent this week in Brisbane, hearing the constitutional challenge by Hells Angels member Stefan Kuczborkski to various Queensland laws targeting ‘bikie gangs’ and an employment law appeal concerning a man who was dismissed after he held a sign attacking ‘scabs’ during industrial action concerning a coal mine. As well, the Court heard six applications for special leave to appeal from Queensland matters and granted leave in one of them. Continue reading
Expert Evidence and Unreliability in the High Court: Honeysett v The Queen
By Andrew Roberts
Honeysett v The Queen Case Page
The question of how and by whom the reliability of expert testimony should be evaluated is problematic. For many, the prevailing approach in Australia is a cause for concern. However, the recent case of Honeysett v The Queen [2014] HCA 29 presented the High Court with an opportunity to grasp the nettle. In that case, the issue was whether and how a jury could be assisted in comparing the image of the accused taken at a police station to an armed robber captured on a CCTV image whose head was covered by a hood by an anatomy professor pointing out similarities in the images and the absence of any differences.
In criminal trials witnesses are generally prohibited from expressing opinions on matters that are to be determined by the jury. Witnesses are generally expected to testify only to the facts. The drawing of inferences from those facts is the exclusive province of the jury. Opinions offered by witnesses are excluded because they are superfluous. The prohibition is subject, however, to significant exceptions, one of which permits an opinion to be expressed by a witness who possesses ‘specialised knowledge’ — provided that the opinion is ‘wholly or substantially based’ on that knowledge. Such witnesses are allowed to express opinions because the jury is thought to lack the knowledge and experience that would enable it to draw rational and reliable inferences. In such circumstances, the expert’s opinions are required to ensure that verdict returned by the jury is the product of sound reasoning.
Why reliability matters
What then of the issue of reliability? If the justification for allowing experts to offer opinions is that the jury lacks the competence required to draw the inferences drawn by the expert, is the idea that evaluation of the reliability of expert opinion should be left to the jury plausible? Continue reading
News: David Eastman conviction quashed
The Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory today quashed David Eastman’s conviction for the 1989 murder of the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, Colin Winchester. This result followed a wide-ranging report into the safety of his conviction by former Northern Territory Chief Justice Brian Martin that concluded that his conviction was unsafe for a combination of reasons, the primary one being a finding of flawed science and bias by a ballistics expert. The Supreme Court agreed with Martin’s conclusion, but not his further view that any retrial would be impossible. Today’s decision is a lengthy and complex one raising difficult questions about judicial inquiries into the safety of finalised convictions, including matters such as whether the court is limited to inquiring into doubts about guilt (as opposed to the fairness of the trial), whether the court can have regard to material that is kept confidential from the parties, whether an otherwise strong circumstantial case becomes unsafe because of doubts about forensic evidence and whether retrial should be ordered so long after the original 1995 trial.
It may be that questions about these issues will be appealed to the High Court. If so, it will be the latest of many High Court rulings on Eastman’s prosecution, including Continue reading
News: New Zealand Supreme Court follows High Court on political charities
A charity or a trust with a ‘political purpose’ has traditionally been held not to have charitable status (sometimes called the Bowman principle). In Bowman v Secular Society [1917] AC 406, Lord Parker said at 442:
a trust for the attainment of political objects has always been held invalid, not because it is illegal, for every one is at liberty to advocate or promote by any lawful means a change in the law, but because the Court has no means of judging whether a proposed change in the law will or will not be for the public benefit, and therefore cannot say that a gift to secure the change is a charitable gift.
This has been subsequently upheld in English case law in cases such as McGovern v Attorney-General [1982] Ch 321 and Hanchett-Stamford v Attorney-General [2009] Ch 173. The latter case held that while a new Charities Act had been enacted in 2006, this did not change the fundamental principle that charities with political purposes were not charitable.
By contrast, in 2010, a majority of the High Court of Australia declined to follow the English case law in Aid/Watch Incorporated v Commissioner for Taxation [2010] HCA 42. At [45]–[46], French CJ, Gummow, Hayne, Crennan and Bell JJ noted that agitation of political and public debate could be a societal good, and that the court did not have to decide on whether the political purposes furthered by the charity were legitimate.
Now, in In re Greenpeace [2014] NZSC 105, a majority of the New Zealand Supreme Court has decided to follow the High Court’s lead. Following the decision of the New Zealand Court of Appeal in Molloy v Commissioner of Inland Revenue [1981] 1 NZLR 688, the Charities Commission in New Zealand had refused to register Greenpeace as a charity on the basis that two of its purposes were political, namely the promotion of disarmament and peace and the agitation of change to government policy and legislation. The Australian approach was an important influence on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the political purpose exemption (see [66]–[71] of In re Greenpeace). As with the High Court decision, the New Zealand Supreme Court was not unanimous and there were two dissenting judges. As the majority noted, there is still a possibility that Greenpeace will not qualify as a charity in light of arguments that it furthers illegal purposes by endorsing trespass and other such activities when advocating “non-violent direct action.” Now the question of Greenpeace’s status as a charitable entity has been remitted back to the Charities Commission for reconsideration in light of the New Zealand Supreme Court decision.
News: Tasmanian anti-environment protest laws back before Parliament
Tasmania’s upper house of Parliament will soon debate proposed laws that create new offences for conducting protests in a manner that disrupt business activities, including conducting protests on business premises or that impede access to the location for business activities.
The Workplaces (Protection from Protestors) Bill 2014 passed the Tasmanian lower house in late June 2014. On 19 August 2014 it was read for the first time in the Tasmanian Legislative Council. The Bill continues to generate protest and opposition from within parliament and beyond. The proposed bill creates new definitions of protest and business that, should the bill pass, will be much analysed by judges. However, as Melbourne Law School’s Professor Adrienne Stone has noted, the law may ultimately be subject to a constitutional challenge on the ground that it is inconsistent with the implied constitutional freedom of political communication. The limitation on protestors might be unreasonable or disproportionate to the desired purpose of the law – to protect businesses from disruption. Should a challenge to the law be brought before the High Court, it will add to the opportunities presented to the court last year in the cases of Monis and Corneloup and already this year in the Unions NSW case to develop jurisprudence on the implied freedom.
The DNA, the Handshake and the Didgeridoo: Fitzgerald v The Queen
By Professor Jeremy Gans
Fitzgerald v The Queen Case Page
On 19 June 2011 at around 6 am, a group of men carrying makeshift weapons poured from two cars into an Adelaide suburban home. The resulting horror left 23 year-old Kym Drover dead and 25 year-old Daniel Fitzgerald serving a minimum twenty year term for his murder. Just two pieces of evidence linked the two: a handshake the previous evening (between Fitzgerald and the only other person convicted of the attack on Drover) and a didgeridoo found the next morning next to Drover (containing Fitzgerald’s DNA).
Two months ago, on the crime’s third anniversary, the High Court unanimously, correctly and — after his counsel noted his otherwise clean record — summarily freed and acquitted Fitzgerald, exemplifying the national court’s role as a last ditch avenue of appeal for the wrongly convicted. But the case should never have got that far. Fitzgerald should never have been charged. He should never have been found guilty. He should have easily won his appeal in South Australia. The High Court’s slight reasons in Fitzgerald v The Queen [2014] HCA 28 do too little to address the risks arising from the criminal justice system’s overuse of DNA evidence. Continue reading
News: New Court matters include case about tragic radio hoax
This week, the High Court decided three criminal law cases, declined to proceed with a fourth following a full hearing, awarded additional costs to the victor in an earlier matter and held two case management hearings: one, in the ongoing litigation about the Commonwealth’s powers to detain asylum seekers en route to Australia and another in a constitutional challenge to a NSW law revoking mining licences following a corruption inquiry.
As well, today, the High Court granted special leave to appeal in three commercial investment matters and a regulatory dispute involving a very high profile tragedy. Continue reading
Pollentine v Attorney-General (Qld)
The High Court has decided a special case and upheld the validity of s 18 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1945 (Qld), which relates to continued detention of child sex offenders after the expiry of sentence, ‘at her Majesty’s pleasure’, on the grounds that the ‘offender is incapable of exercising proper control over the offender’s sexual instincts’. Continue reading
Fitzgerald v The Queen
Jeremy Gans, ‘The DNA, the Handshake and the Didgeridoo: Fitzgerald v The Queen‘ (18 August 2014).
The High Court has unanimously allowed an appeal against the decision of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia in R v Fitzgerald and acquitted the appellant of murder. Continue reading
Honeysett v The Queen
The High Court has unanimously allowed an appeal against the decision of the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in R v Honeysett, and has quashed the appellant’s conviction and ordered a new trial. Continue reading
News: Big trouble for crime boss scenario evidence
Seven years ago, a majority of the High Court in Tofilau v R [2007] HCA 39 upheld four Victorian convictions founded on an unusual criminal investigative method. The method (known in Australia as ‘scenario’ evidence) is for undercover police officers to recruit suspected criminals into fake criminal gangs and then trick them into confessing real crimes by telling them that such confessions are a requirement for membership. After further prompts (such as staged inquiries from real police and promised aid from ‘corrupt’ police), the scenario culminates in a detailed, videotaped interview with the gang’s ‘boss’, after which the sting is revealed to the stunned suspect. This astonishing method (whose details can only be published thanks to a 2005 High Court ruling rejecting a publication ban) was developed in Canada, and the High Court in 2007 relied heavily on its repeated endorsement by the Canadian Supreme Court in upholding its use here.
However, last week, Canada’s top court unanimously changed its mind Continue reading
News: Sri Lankan case becomes less urgent
This July – the High Court’s winter recess – has seen six lengthy hearings concerning legal action on behalf of passengers of a boat from India who have spent the balance of the month detained in an Australian government vessel. Continue reading
Sir Anthony Mason Reflects on Judging in Australia and Hong Kong, Precedent and Judgment Writing
On 18 July 2014, I was able to interview Sir Anthony Mason as we were both attending Obligations VII Conference in Hong Kong.
Sir Anthony was a judge of the High Court of Australia from 1972 to 1987, and Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia from 1987 to 1995. He then became a non-permanent judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, a position which he still holds.
We spoke about his roles as a judge in Australia and Hong Kong, significant judgments during his time as a High Court judge, the role of dissenting judgments, the use of academic commentary and overseas judgments, the doctrine of precedent and Farah v Say-Dee, and judgment writing styles.
KB: Thanks so much for agreeing to speak to me today.
AM: It’s a pleasure, Katy.
KB: The first thing I’d like to ask is: how would you view your time on the High Court?
AM: I enjoyed it very much. I suppose I can say I enjoyed being a judge.
KB: Yes.
AM: In one sense I regarded it as great fun. It was of course at times onerous, but I always enjoyed it. The questions were interesting and it was interesting endeavouring to answer the questions.
KB: And on that note, obviously you haven’t still given up being a judge. What about your time on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal? (See also The Hon Sir Anthony Mason, ‘The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal’ (2001) 2 Melbourne Journal of International Law 216.)
AM: Likewise, I’ve enjoyed that very much. There are two different, or two aspects of that that are different from sitting in the High Court. First of all I am sitting on the CFA as a part-time judge. It’s more enjoyable being a part-time judge than a full-time one. Of course you don’t feel that sense of grind which you feel at times if you’re a permanent judge sitting on a court over a long period of time. But the second feature of sitting on the CFA is that I began sitting on that Court at the time when courts began to interpret the provisions of the Basic Law of Hong Kong’s Constitution. And it’s very different interpreting the provisions of a new Constitution at the very beginning from interpreting the provisions of an old Constitution after a lot of, as it were, work has already been done on it. You feel at times in the medium of the High Court that you’ve got to contend with a lot of overburden. You never have that feeling in Hong Kong. And the great thing about it is that it instils in you a sense of history and appreciation of the work done by those great judges who were the first High Court judges. I mean, they were remarkably good judges. They quickly established a reputation for the High Court as one of the leading courts in the world, and what’s more, they stood up to the Privy Council, and in their first big confrontation with the Privy Council they won out, and you should never forget their contribution to the development of Australian democracy and to the Australian Constitution. (See Deakin v Webb [1904] HCA 57.) Continue reading
News: Progress in two major upcoming cases
This week brought important developments in two significant proceedings that will soon be heard by the High Court: the urgent litigation over the fate of approximately 150 Sri Lankan asylum seekers held in an Australian cargo vessel; and the constitutional challenge to Queensland’s ‘bikie’ laws. Continue reading
News: Journalist interviews every judge of Canada’s top court
Canadian journalist Catherine Clark, the daughter of a former Prime Minister and the host of Beyond Politics (shown on Canada’s public affairs cable channel) has conducted video interviews with the entire bench of the Supreme Court of Canada. Each runs for nearly 30 minutes. There are only eight interviews, as the Court’s ninth seat was unoccupied until recently (for reasons explained here). The interviews are available online at the website of Beyond Politics and on the show’s youtube channel (see the end of the list). In her interview, the current Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin reveals that she received the phone call offering her a place on the court while vacationing with her twelve-year old in Townsville.
Clark’s interviews resemble video interviews given by all sitting judges of the United States Supreme Court in 2009 on CSPAN. The American and Canadian Supreme Courts’ willingness to give interviews while on the bench contrasts with the general practice of Australia’s High Court, which is generally limited to rare interviews with the Chief Justice on special occasions, such as impending retirement [UPDATE: see comment below.] Last year, The Australian reported that the Court’s current Chief Justice, Robert French, has ruled out any media interviews before he retires in 2017.
The High Court Upholds the ‘PNG Solution’: Plaintiff S156/2013
By Houston Ash
While the legality of the Australian government’s policy of transferring Sri Lankan asylum seekers to that country’s navy is likely to be considered by the High Court shortly, a separate challenge to another pillar of the government’s migration strategy was recently dismissed. In Plaintiff S156/2013 v Minister of Immigration and Border Protection [2014] HCA 22, the High Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the provisions of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) under which asylum seekers are removed from Australia’s ‘migration zone’ to either Papua New Guinea or the Republic of Nauru. The Court also confirmed the validity of the decisions made by the Minister of Immigration and Border Protection to designate PNG as a ‘regional processing country’ and to direct officers of what is now the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to take particular classes of ‘unauthorised maritime arrivals’ to PNG or Nauru.
The provisions in question, ss 198AB and 198AD of the Migration Act, were introduced by the Migration Legislation Amendment (Regional Processing and Other Measures) Act 2012 (Cth). As discussed further below, these provisions were the Parliament’s response to the High Court’s decision in Plaintiff M70/2011 v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2011] HCA 32, which scuppered the former government’s so-called ‘Malaysia Solution’.
The challenged provisions
Section 198AD of the Migration Act requires ‘unlawful non-citizens’ who are also ‘unauthorised maritime arrivals’ to be taken to a ‘regional processing country’ as soon as reasonably practicable. If there are two or more such countries, s 198AD(5) requires the Minister to provide a written direction specifying the country to which a person or class of persons is to be taken. Section 198AB allows the Minister, by legislative instrument, to designate that a country is a ‘regional processing country’ if the Minister thinks it is in the national interest to do so. In considering the national interest, the Minister must have regard to whether the country has given any assurances that it:
- (a) Will not expel the person to a country where his or her life or freedom would be threatened; and
- (b) Will permit an assessment of whether the person is a refugee within the meaning of art 1A of the Refugees Convention.
Section 198AB(4) provides that any such assurances do not need to be legally binding. Continue reading
Williams [No 2] Symposium: Some Curiosities and Further Thoughts on Williams [No 2]
By Benjamin Saunders
This post makes some additional comments about the Court’s reasoning with respect to executive power (the subject of an earlier post by Cheryl Saunders (no relation to the author)) and also briefly discusses the Commonwealth waiving debts owed to it as a consequence of the Court’s finding of invalidity.
Executive power, British and Australian
I do not disagree with the opinions expressed by Cheryl Saunders in her earlier post, that ‘Williams [No 2] does not add a great deal of substance to the conclusions about the ambit of the executive power of the Commonwealth reached in Williams [No 1]’. However, I wish to make some additional observations, namely that the Court in Williams [No 2] reached its decision about the scope of executive power in an unusual way. Continue reading
News: Court reportedly issues interim injunction in Sri Lankan asylum matter
Media reports state that the High Court has issued an injunction preventing the Australian navy from handing over approximately 150 people, said to have travelled by boat to seek asylum in Australia, to Sri Lankan officials. This follows confirmation by the Australian government of an incident involving 41 people:
Forty one potential illegal maritime arrivals who were intercepted on the SIEV were returned to Sri Lankan authorities yesterday (Sunday 6 July). The 41 Sri Lankan nationals were transferred at sea, in mild sea conditions from a vessel assigned to Border Protection Command (BPC) to Sri Lankan authorities, just outside the Port of Batticaloa. All persons intercepted and returned were subjected to an enhanced screening process, as also practised by the previous government, to ensure compliance by Australia with our international obligations under relevant conventions.
The Australian reports that the injunction was granted by Crennan J in an urgent hearing this evening and will apply until 4pm tomorrow, by which time a further hearing will have occurred.
A possible precedent for the reported injunction is an interim injunction granted by Hayne J on 7 August 2011 to prevent the first transfer of asylum seekers from Christmas Island to Malaysia under the ‘Malaysian Solution’. Continue reading
News: High Court is Australia’s most trusted institution
A recent Essential Poll records that Australia’s most trusted institution is the High Court of Australia. 20% of the 1835 people surveyed said that they placed “a lot of trust” in the High Court” and 37% said that they placed “some trust” in the High Court. The High Court outstripped all other institutions, but was closely followed by the ABC. The High Court also had the lowest level of distrust, with only 12% of respondents saying that they had “no trust” in the High Court. Political parties scored the lowest in the 2014 poll, with only 2% of people saying that they placed “a lot of trust” in political parties and 11% of people saying that they placed “some trust” in political parties. 50% of people said that they had “no trust” in political parties. Continue reading
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
FTZK v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
The High Court has allowed an appeal against the decision of the Full Federal Court in FTZK. FTZK is an asylum seeker who was accused of involvement in a kidnapping-murder while he was in China, an accusation he claims was motivated by his religious practices. Continue reading
News: Media round-up on Chaplain Case
Sometimes High Court judgments excite a lot of interest not only from lawyers, but from the general public. Williams v Commonwealth [2014] HCA 23 (‘Williams [No 2]’) is one such decision.
The immediate response from the Prime Minister was that the government would try to continue its support of chaplaincy in State schools despite the High Court’s decision. In a comment which was later roundly criticised by many, Coalition backbencher Andrew Laming said that an out-of-touch “alliance of Greens, gays and atheists” had mounted a campaign against chaplaincy culminating in the result of the latest case.
Some saw the case as a ‘Trojan Horse’ for a resurgence of States’ Rights activism, whereas others argued that it was a victory for LGBTIQ youth. Some were concerned about what was going to happen with regard to the funding for chaplains which had already been paid over.
The IPA opined that Williams [No 2] was a win for parliamentary democracy because it reiterated that decisions over how public money should be spent should be made by parliament, not the executive, and that the separation of powers was upheld. With respect, this is overstating the result of Williams [No 2]. Williams [No1] decided that the Commonwealth executive had no power to enter into the funding agreements for chaplaincy with Scripture Union Queensland. The High Court did not decide Williams [No 2] on the basis of parliamentary sovereignty, and as Professor Cheryl Saunders notes, the case ‘does not add a great deal of substance to the conclusions about the ambit of the executive power of the Commonwealth reached in Williams [No 1].’ The judgment did not mention separation of powers. It decided the case on the narrower ground of whether there was any particular head of power which supported the funding in the specific instance of chaplains (it was found that there was no head of power which did support it). As Professor Simon Evans explains here, it hinged around whether there was a ‘benefit to students’. Williams [No 2] simply represents a tightening of our understanding of the legislative heads of power.
Other media commentators were interested in what other programs could be affected by the ruling. Indeed, a perusal of the programs which are covered by Schedule 1AA of the Financial Management and Accountability Regulations 1997 (Cth) makes for interesting reading.
Williams [No 2] Symposium: Thomas Bland on the Plaintiff’s Standing and the Commonwealth’s Attempt to Re-Open Williams [No 1]
By Thomas Bland
In Williams [No 1], the plaintiff leapt over a procedural hurdle — whether he, as a parent of children who attended a school in which a chaplain was employed pursuant to the National School Chaplaincy Program, had standing to challenge the funding arrangements underlying that program. In Williams [No 2] the Commonwealth defendants, faced with Mr Williams’ second challenge to the funding arrangements, failed to surmount a different hurdle when the Court denied them leave to challenge the correctness of the Court’s decision in Williams [No 1].
In this post, I will briefly examine how the Court in Williams [No 2] dealt with the plaintiff’s standing and the Commonwealth’s ill-fated attempt to have Williams [No 1] overruled, and I will make some observations on the Court’s approach to these issues.
Standing
One of the questions reserved for the Full Court in Williams [No 2] was whether the plaintiff had standing to bring the challenge to s 32B of the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (Cth). The Commonwealth conceded in its written submissions that, ‘in light of the position taken by the [intervening States]’, the plaintiff had standing. The Court accepted this concession and answered the question thus: ‘[I]n the circumstances of this case, and to the extent necessary for the determination of this matter, yes’ (at [28]). (The Court explained the reasons for the qualified answer, but they are irrelevant for present purposes.)
The Commonwealth’s concession was doubtless informed by the Court’s holding on the plaintiff’s standing in Williams [No 1]. Given that counsel for the Commonwealth (as discussed further below) went on to challenge the substantive holdings in Williams [No 1], it is perhaps unsurprising that they conceded the standing point. If the Court held that the plaintiff lacked standing, the Commonwealth’s opportunity to have Williams [No 1] overruled would not arise. However, the Court’s holding on standing in Williams [No 1] arguably signals a departure from its previous practice. It is worth considering whether this is so, and if so, what this might mean for future litigants. Continue reading
Williams [No 2] Symposium: Cheryl Saunders on the Executive Power of the Commonwealth after Williams [No 2]
By Professor Cheryl Saunders
Williams [No 2] does not add a great deal of substance to the conclusions about the ambit of the executive power of the Commonwealth reached in Williams [No 1]. The principal question for the Court was the validity of the legislation that had been enacted in the wake of Williams [No 1], to provide a loose statutory base for the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program (NSCSWP) and more than 400 other executive spending programs. The reasoning of the Court on the issues raised by this question is dealt with elsewhere in the symposium. In brief, the six sitting Justices, in two separate judgements, rejected arguments that either the benefits to students power (s 51(xxiiiA)) or the corporations power (s 51(xx)) provided a head of power for the legislation in relation to the NSCSWP. The Court did not need to determine whether the covering provisions in the Appropriation Acts provided the necessary legislative base for executive spending programs, because similar questions about a head of power arose: [55]. Nor did it need to reach the more novel question of whether the challenged legislation involved a delegation of legislative power that was so excessive or vague that it transgressed the Constitution in some other way: [36].
The ambit of federal executive power nevertheless was in issue in Williams [No 2], not least because the Commonwealth sought to reopen Williams [No 1] (for this argument, see [59]). In place of the majority holding in Williams [No 1], the Commonwealth argued for an understanding of s 61 that identified minimal limitations on the ability of the Executive to contract and spend: [68]. Alternatively, if the executive power also was limited by subject matter, the Commonwealth argued that federal power to contract and spend ‘extends to all those matters that are reasonably capable as being seen of national benefit or concern; that is, all those matters that befit the national government of the federation, as discerned from the text and structure of the Constitution’: [70]. Had either argument succeeded, the legislation might have been upheld as an exercise of s 51(xxxix) in combination with s 61 or even ss 81 and 83. Indeed, on the basis of the first argument, at least, there would have been no need for legislation at all. Both, however, were rejected, as arguments that, effectively, had been tried and had failed before ([69], [71]). Williams [No 1] was not reopened and the majority holding stands. Continue reading
Williams [No 2] Symposium: Simon Evans on Benefits to Students
By Professor Simon Evans
The National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP) was struck down in Williams [No 2] because, the High Court concluded, the Commonwealth legislation that purported to authorise it was not a law with respect to ‘benefits to students’.
Williams [No 2] does not determine the fate of this legislation more generally or of the myriad other programs it was enacted to validate following Williams [No 1].
Nor does it deal a permanently fatal blow to the NSCP. But it does raise serious issues for Commonwealth laws and schemes that deal with students and education. This post is an initial sketch of some of those issues and the questions that will have to be addressed in coming months. Continue reading
Williams [No 2] Symposium: Graeme Hill on Narrowing the Issues
By Graeme Hill, Barrister
The High Court delivered its judgment in Williams [No 2] only 6 weeks after the hearing, much more quickly than is usual in complex constitutional cases. One reason the Court was able to deliver its judgment so quickly was that the Court carefully narrowed the issues to be dealt with. The Court concentrated on whether the particular item in the Financial Management and Accountability Regulations 1997 (Cth) (FMA Regulations) that referred to the school chaplaincy program was supported by a head of Commonwealth legislative power. The Court’s negative answer to that question meant it was unnecessary to deal with the other arguments raised by the plaintiff.
The Court’s reasoning in this respect is orthodox and, I would suggest, appropriate in this case.
Narrowing the issues
Williams [No 2] considered the validity of the Financial Framework Legislation Amendment Act (No 3) 2012 (Cth) (FFLA Act), which was enacted days after, and in response to, the High Court’s judgment in Williams [No 1]. In outline, the FFLA Act amended the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (Cth) (FMA Act) and FMA Regulations in an attempt to confer statutory authority on the Commonwealth executive to make payments under existing grants and programs, including the school chaplaincy program. Continue reading
Question: When Does a Litigant Want to be a Fiduciary? Answer: When It Involves Tax Law: Howard v Commissioner of Taxation
By Michael Crawford
Howard v Commissioner of Taxation Case Page
Why would a litigant want to be a fiduciary?
The law reports of all common law jurisdictions are replete with cases in which fiduciaries who have obtained a financial gain furiously deny that the gain constitutes an unauthorised benefit or that it was obtained in circumstances in which their duty to their principal was in conflict with their personal interest. It is somewhat of a novelty, however, to come across a case in which a fiduciary implores a court to find that he has obtained a benefit in breach of his obligations and that the fruit of his wrongdoing should thus be held on constructive trust for the benefit of his principal. Yet Howard v Commission of Taxation [2014] HCA 21 is just such a case. And why, one might ask, would a fiduciary urge upon a court such an apparently perverse submission? The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is tax law.
The appellant was one of six people who entered into a fiduciary joint venture, the purpose of which was to exploit the investment potential of an underperforming golf course in Victoria. The plan agreed upon was to purchase the course, find a long-term tenant to operate it and then sell the reversion to a third party for a profit. The profit realised from the sale would then be divided six ways. The benefit of this strategy was that it would yield a more or less immediate profit, referred to as a ‘day one’ profit, for the participants. Continue reading