News: Five new appeals, one an enigma
In hearings yesterday in Brisbane and Sydney, the High Court granted special leave in five new matters, including two Queensland judgments where Holmes JA (who recently replaced Carmody CJ as chief...
View ArticleNews: Nettle J on open justice in Victoria
A procedural hearing on Tuesday hinted at Nettle J’s views on open justice in Victoria, an issue that has been recently debated in The Age. The matter concerns an effort by two police officers who are...
View ArticleNews: Special leave granted on solicitor’s duty to will beneficiary
Yesterday, separate from the Court’s usual special leave schedule, the High Court granted special leave to appeal a ruling of the full court of the Supreme Court of Tasmania decided three months ago....
View ArticleNews: Special leave to appeal revoked in Fernando v Commonwealth
Fernando v Commonwealth purportedly raised the issue of what measure of damages were appropriate for a case of wrongful immigration detention where the plaintiff could have been lawfully detained in...
View ArticleNews: Six new administrative and criminal law cases
In sittings in Canberra and Sydney yesterday, the High Court granted special leave to appeal six decisions, consisting of two administrative law matters and four criminal law ones. As well, in the...
View ArticleNews: Predictable special leave outcomes
Predicting which cases will get special leave to the High Court is generally difficult. Last month, two Victorian judges refused an injunction to preserve the subject-matter of a case that was the...
View ArticleNews: Ken Parish on the tragedies surrounding Melbourne v R [1999] HCA 32
Legal academic Ken Parish has a post at Club Troppo marking the death of Roy Melbourne, the defendant in a 1999 High Court criminal appeal. The post is an especially poignant one, because Melbourne was...
View ArticleNews: Four more cases get special leave
In sittings today in Melbourne and Sydney, the High Court held its final special leave hearings for 2015, allowing appeals from the following four cases to proceed to the national apex court: Betts v R...
View ArticleNews: Counting High Court judgments
Today, the High Court issued its final judgment for 2015, number 53 in the media neutral citation list, one more than last year. Looking back over the Court’s judgments published on Austlii, these...
View ArticleNews: Baden-Clay’s resentencing delayed until High Court hearing
One of the most closely watched High Court matters of 2016 is an application to appeal a Queensland Court of Appeal decision from December, concerning a high profile domestic homicide. In R v...
View ArticleNews: Suppression applications in the High Court
A week ago, the High Court’s registry listed the following matter before Gageler J at 11am in the Court’s Sydney registry: APPLICATION FOR NON-PUBLICATION ORDERS [NAME SUPPRESSED] v THE QUEEN While it...
View ArticleNews: High Court circuit hearings reduced by budget cuts?
As the Canberra Times reports, the High Court has just released its Annual Report for 2014 – 2015, which contains an alarming warning about circuit hearings around the country in light of budget cuts...
View ArticleNews: Summarising High Court judgments
Wednesday saw the High Court’s first decision of 2016, concerning one of the most controversial issues in Australia: offshore immigration detention. The judgment is a blockbuster, consisting of five...
View ArticleNews: Bell Group – the litigation that just won’t die
In September 2013, I reported that long-running and complex Bell Group litigation had settled immediately before an appeal to the High Court was to be heard. The litigation began in 1995, and related...
View ArticleNews: Quick end to Alqudsi’s challenge to mandatory jury trials
Yesterday’s new decision on civil procedure and insurers is not the only significant ruling of the High Court this week. Wednesday’s day-long hearing of a pre-trial application by accused promoter of...
View ArticleNews: Slow start to special leave grants in 2016
The Court today held its first special leave hearings for 2016, in its Sydney and Canberra registries. All the Sydney applications were rejected, while in Canberra, the Court granted special leave in...
View ArticleNews: A surprise death in a national court
Yesterday’s news of the death of United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia will dismay many, including those who agree with his views and many others who simply enjoyed reading his...
View ArticleNews: Australian criminal law took a ‘wrong turn’, says UK’s top court
In a long-awaited and unusual joint judgment of two peak courts, the UK Supreme Court and the Privy Council, five judges yesterday ruled that the common law took a ‘wrong turn’ on the criminal law of...
View ArticleNews: Gageler J on Victoria’s missing rights Charter
Today, the High Court unanimously rejected an appeal by two anonymous Victorian police officers who argued that they should not be publicly examined by Victoria’s anti-corruption commission about an...
View ArticleNews: Six new cases as Morcombe matter ends
Friday’s High Court special leave hearings received particular attention in Queensland, with the Court rejecting an application for leave to appeal by Brett Cowan, who was convicted of murdering...
View Article
