Shuaiqi/CLSum huggingface dataset:
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 10 June 2015 [2015] HCA 20 Today the High Court unanimously allowed an appeal from a decision of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria. The High Court held that the decision-making process used by the respondent's delegate in exercising power under s 84P(e) of the Domestic Animals Act 1994 (Vic) ("the Act") was contrary to natural justice because a fair-minded observer might reasonably apprehend that a person who took part in the decision-making might not have brought an impartial mind to the decision. The appellant had been convicted in the Ringwood Magistrates' Court of an offence under s 29(4) of the Act, on a charge that her Staffordshire terrier had attacked a person and caused serious injury. Following a hearing before a panel, a delegate of the respondent who had been a member of that panel made a decision under s 84P(e) of the Act that the appellant's dog be destroyed. Another member of the panel, who had participated fully in the panel's decision-making process following the hearing and drafted the reasons for the decision, was an employee of the respondent whose duties involved the regulation of domestic animals under the Act. She had been substantially involved in the prosecution of the charge in the Magistrates' Court. The appellant, unsuccessfully, sought judicial review of the respondent's decision in the Supreme Court of Victoria. The appellant's appeal to the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria was limited to the ground of apprehended bias. The Court of Appeal found that the ground was not made out and dismissed the appeal. By grant of special leave, the appellant appealed to the High Court. The High Court unanimously allowed the appeal. The Court found that a fair-minded observer might reasonably apprehend that the respondent's employee might not have brought an impartial mind to the decision to destroy the appellant's dog, because her role in the Magistrates' Court the proceedings gave her an decision-making process of the panel. The Court found that, although another member of the panel was responsible for making the decision to order the destruction of the dog, there was still an apprehension that the involvement of the respondent's employee in the Magistrates' Court prosecution might affect not only her own decision-making, but also that of the other members of the panel. The Court found that natural justice required that she not participate in making the decision, and that the decision of the respondent's delegate must therefore be quashed. incompatible with her involvement that was interest
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA Public Information Officer 26 March 2008 AK v THE STATE OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA The High Court of Australia today ordered a retrial for a boy charged with indecently dealing with a child after the trial judge sitting without a jury gave insufficient reasons for his decision to convict. In February 2002, AK, then aged 13, allegedly dealt indecently with his 15-year-old female cousin as they slept on a double mattress with his brother, R, aged 14, and her sister, aged 16. AK’s family had visited the cousin’s family in Geraldton, Western Australia, when the two families decided to travel to Tardun and spend the night in a caravan. During the night AK allegedly touched his cousin’s breasts and vagina and placed her hand on his penis. In March 2003, the cousin became pregnant and subsequently had an abortion. She told other family members and the police that AK was the father. In 2004, AK was charged in the WA Children’s Court with three counts of indecent dealing with a child aged between 13 and 16. These charges related to the alleged incident of February 2002. He was also charged with rape and indecent assault of the cousin in early 2003. In cross-examination of the cousin, an issue of identification was raised and the suggestion was put to her that R could have been the one who touched her in 2002. She was adamant it was AK, not R, but could not say how in the darkness she knew. After a trial in July 2005 before Judge Henry Wisbey sitting alone, AK was convicted of the counts of indecent dealing but acquitted of the other two charges. He was sentenced to a six-month intensive youth supervision order and is subject to seven-and-a-half years of reporting conditions. AK, now aged 19, appealed against his convictions for indecent dealing. Section 120(2) of the WA Criminal Procedure Act provides that the judgment of the judge in a trial by judge alone must include the principles of law they have applied and the findings of fact on which they have relied. The Court of Appeal unanimously held that Judge Wisbey’s reasons for judgment were inadequate because they did not identify and address the issue which arose at trial as the identity of the offender. However, by majority, the Court dismissed the appeal, applying the proviso that no substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred. AK appealed to the High Court. The High Court agreed that Judge Wisbey erred in law in failing to give adequate reasons for his decision to convict AK, only stating his satisfaction beyond reasonable doubt that all elements of indecent dealing had been established. The Court held that Judge Wisbey was obliged to say why and how he resolved the question of identification in favour of the prosecution. However, the Court, by a 3-2 majority, held that the Court of Appeal erred in applying the proviso. The majority held that the complete failure to meet the mandatory requirements of section 120(2) of the Act with respect to the central issue of identification was a substantial miscarriage of justice. The High Court ordered that AK’s convictions be quashed and directed that a new trial be held.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 5 August 2015 AUSNET TRANSMISSION GROUP PTY LTD v THE COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA [2015] HCA 25 Today the High Court, by majority, dismissed an appeal from a decision of a Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia, which held that certain charges paid by the appellant were outgoings of a capital nature and therefore not tax deductible. The appellant purchased the assets of a State-owned electricity transmission business, Power Net Victoria ("PNV"). The assets included an electricity transmission licence held by PNV which had been issued pursuant to Pt 12 of the Electricity Industry Act 1993 (Vic) ("the transmission licence"). The Victorian Governor in Council, by Order made pursuant to s 163AA(1) of the Act, had imposed specified charges on the holder of the transmission licence. When the appellant became the holder of the transmission licence, it became liable to pay the charges by force of the Act. In addition, the relevant asset sale agreement expressly required that the appellant pay the charges to the State of Victoria and refrain from contesting their validity. Separately, it required the appellant to pay a specified "total purchase price" to PNV for its assets. Section 8-1(2)(a) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) provides that a loss or outgoing of capital, or of a capital nature, is not tax deductible under that section. Relevantly, the appellant claimed that the payments of the specified charges were deductible from its assessable income. The respondent, the Commissioner of Taxation of the Commonwealth of Australia, disallowed the deductions claimed and the appellant's subsequent objection. At first instance, the Federal Court affirmed the Commissioner's position. On appeal to a Full Court, the majority held that the specified charges were not deductible because they were of a capital nature and dismissed the appeal. By grant of special leave, the appellant appealed to the High Court. By majority, the Court held that, from a practical and business point of view, the appellant assumed the liability to make the payments in order to acquire the transmission licence and the other assets of PNV. The payments of the charges were outgoings of a capital nature and were therefore not tax deductible.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 12 December 2012 [2012] HCA 59 Today a majority of the High Court allowed an appeal by Mr Michel Baini against the decision of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria to uphold his convictions for blackmail of Mr Hassan Rifat. The High Court remitted the matter to the Court of Appeal for its further consideration. The appellant and another accused were charged with numerous counts of blackmail. All but one of the charges alleged blackmail of Mr Rifat. The other count alleged blackmail of Mr Nicholas Srour. In the course of the trial, an application was made to sever the trial of the count relating to Mr Srour but the trial judge refused that application. The jury found the appellant guilty of some of the counts, including the count relating to Mr Srour. The appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal, which held that the trial judge should have severed the trial of the count relating to Mr Srour. The Court of Appeal concluded that this error resulted in a substantial miscarriage of justice in the trial of the count relating to Mr Srour but not in the trial of the counts relating to Mr Rifat. It therefore ordered that there be a new trial of the count relating to Mr Srour but upheld the appellant's convictions for blackmail of Mr Rifat. By special leave, the appellant appealed to the High Court in relation to his convictions for blackmail of Mr Rifat. A majority of the High Court allowed the appeal. The majority held that, because all the counts were tried together, the jury heard prejudicial evidence from Mr Srour which would not have been admissible in a separate trial of the counts alleging blackmail of Mr Rifat. Unless this error could have had no effect on the jury's guilty verdicts, the error in refusing to sever the counts resulted in a substantial miscarriage of justice in the trial of the counts about Mr Rifat. The Court of Appeal not having considered whether the error could have had no effect on the outcome of the trial having regard to the full record of the trial, and the High Court not having available to it the full record, the majority allowed the appeal and remitted the matter to the Court of Appeal for its further consideration.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 10 November 2021 JONG HAN PARK v THE QUEEN [2021] HCA 37 Today the High Court unanimously dismissed an appeal from a decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The appeal concerned the correct interpretation of s 22 of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW) ("the Sentencing Act"), which prescribes how certain courts are required to take into account an offender's guilty plea in passing sentence. Section 22(1) relevantly provided that if an offender has pleaded guilty the court may impose a lesser penalty "than it would otherwise have imposed". The appellant pleaded guilty and was sentenced in the District Court of New South Wales to an aggregate sentence of imprisonment of 11 years, with a non-parole period of eight years, for multiple offences including the offence of taking a conveyance without the consent of the owner contrary to s 154A(1)(a) of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) ("the offence"). The maximum penalty for the offence was five years' imprisonment but, because it was dealt with as a "related offence" in accordance with s 165 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW), the District Court's sentencing power was limited to the maximum penalty of two years' imprisonment that the Local Court could have imposed for the offence ("the jurisdictional limit"). As the sentencing judge imposed an aggregate sentence, his Honour was required by s 53A of the Sentencing Act to indicate the sentence that would have been imposed had separate sentences been imposed. The sentencing judge indicated a sentence of two years' imprisonment for the offence and noted that a 25% discount had been applied to the sentence that would otherwise have been imposed to reflect the utility of the appellant's early plea of guilty. Therefore, but for the appellant's guilty plea, the sentencing judge's indicative sentence would have been two years and eight months' imprisonment, being a sentence in excess of the jurisdictional limit. The appellant argued that this was not a sentence the sentencing judge "would otherwise have imposed" within the meaning of s 22(1) of the Sentencing Act because, by reason of the jurisdictional limit, it was not a sentence that the court could impose. The High Court rejected the appellant's construction of s 22(1) of the Sentencing Act and held that the sentence that the court "would otherwise have imposed" is the appropriate sentence determined in accordance with the Sentencing Act and without regard to any jurisdictional limit. Any relevant jurisdictional limit should be applied by the sentencing judge after the judge has determined the appropriate sentence for an offence in accordance with s 21A of the Sentencing Act. A jurisdictional limit relates to the sentencing court, not to the task of identifying and synthesising the relevant factors that are weighed to determine the appropriate sentence.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 12 February 2004 ROBERT JOHN PUTLAND v THE QUEEN The High Court of Australia today upheld the imposition by the Northern Territory Supreme Court of an aggregate sentence for multiple federal offences. Mr Putland pleaded guilty in 2001 to two offences of defrauding the Commonwealth contrary to the Crimes Act and four offences against the Bankruptcy Act. The offences arose from the failure of his Alice Springs trucking business and involved two counts each of tax fraud, disposing of property with intent to defraud his creditors after being declared bankrupt in 1992, and carrying on a business until 1996 as an undischarged bankrupt. The Supreme Court imposed a single aggregate sentence of four years’ jail and ordered that Mr Putland be released after serving 12 months upon entering into a three-year good behaviour bond. He appealed unsuccessfully to the NT Court of Criminal Appeal on various grounds. The sole ground of appeal pursued in the High Court was that the judge did not have power to impose an aggregate term of imprisonment. Aggregate sentences may be imposed for multiple offences arising from a course of conduct. Section 52 of the NT Sentencing Act allowed courts to impose one term of imprisonment for a number of offences and section 68 of the federal Judiciary Act provided that State or Territory laws regarding arrest, custody, trial and sentencing shall apply to people charged with Commonwealth offences. Hence offenders in different parts of Australia may experience different treatment due to differences in laws between States and Territories. Mr Putland argued that section 68 of the Judiciary Act did not give the Supreme Court power under section 52 of the Sentencing Act to impose one term of imprisonment in respect of all offences. He argued that Part 1B, in particular section 4K, of the Crimes Act covered the field regarding sentencing of federal offenders in higher courts, with aggregate sentencing only allowed for summary offences, not for indictable offences. The High Court held that the Supreme Court had power, pursuant to section 68 of the Judiciary Act, to impose aggregate sentences. The Court, by a 4-1 majority, dismissed Mr Putland’s appeal.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA Public Information Officer 4 February, 2003 PLAINTIFF S157/2002 v THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA and RE MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS & REFUGEE REVIEW TRIBUNAL; EX PARTE APPLICANTS S134/2002 Plaintiff S157, intending to commence legal proceedings to challenge administrative decisions concerning his protection visa application, faced two provisions included in the Migration Act in 2001: section 474, a privative clause preventing certain administrative decisions from being made the subject of judicial review; and section 486A, imposing a 35-day limit on applications for such review. He brought an action to challenge the validity of those sections and to contest their application to his case. The merits of his proposed challenge to the administrative decisions were not in issue before the High Court of Australia. Only the validity and effect of sections 474 and 486A were in question. The High Court’s jurisdiction to grant relief against Commonwealth officers under section 75(v) of the Constitution cannot be ousted by act of Parliament. The Commonwealth accepted this and did not contend that section 474 of the Migration had totally excluded judicial review, pursuant to section 75(v), of decisions which section 474 applied. The parliamentary debates, to which the Commonwealth referred the Court, reveal that parliament did not intend the section to have that effect. The Court held that sections 474 and 486A are valid but apply to what the Act defines as privative clause decisions. It held that decisions affected by certain kinds of error – jurisdictional error – are not privative clause decisions as defined. Accordingly, the Court held that neither section would apply to the proceedings which S157 would initiate. In the second case, relating to Applicants S134, the High Court, by majority, rejected challenges to decisions refusing protection visas for a woman and her five children claiming Afghan nationality. They arrived by boat in 2001, apparently unaware their husband and father had arrived in 1999 and held a three-year temporary protection visa. The family claimed the Refugee Review Tribunal had erred by not taking into account the man’s circumstances and that the Immigration Minister should have exercised his power to substitute a more favourable decision. The Court held that rejection of their applications was not marked by jurisdictional error, illegality or impropriety and the Minister was not bound to exercise his power. Note: Since October 2001, the Migration Act has provided that courts cannot name plaintiffs seeking protection visas.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 15 December 2005 This appeal concerned the application of the “proviso”, by which a criminal appeal may be dismissed, even though a trial judge has made an error of law, where there has been no substantial miscarriage of justice. Mr Weiss was convicted in the Victorian Supreme Court of beating Helen Elizabeth Gray to death on 24 November 1994. He was charged with her murder six years later. His former de facto wife, Jean Horstead, testified that on the night of the murder Mr Weiss confessed he had killed Ms Gray, a friend of theirs. Ms Horstead originally provided him with a false alibi, but after she split up with him and moved to America she contacted police to tell the truth. After the murder, Mr Weiss began a relationship with a 14-year-old girl named Renée. In November 2000, in an interview with police, he admitted visiting Ms Grey, quarrelling with her and striking her with her son’s cricket bat. Mr Weiss admitted stripping the rubber grip from the bat handle and throwing it from the car on his way home. He told the trial these confessions were false. The Victorian Court of Appeal unanimously held that evidence of Renée’s age should not have been admitted as it was not relevant, could not be used to bolster the credit of Ms Horstead, and any probative value was outweighed by its prejudicial quality. The Court however dismissed the appeal, holding that it should apply the proviso. The Court held that a distinction should be drawn between whether, without the wrongly admitted evidence, the jury in the case would inevitably have convicted Mr Weiss, and whether, without that evidence, any reasonable jury, properly instructed, would inevitably have convicted him. On the “this jury” test, the Court concluded that conviction was inevitable. On the “any reasonable jury” test, conviction was not necessarily inevitable because another jury might have a different view of Ms Horstead’s evidence or the reliability of Mr Weiss’s confession. The Court held that the “this jury” test was the relevant test and dismissed the appeal. Mr Weiss was granted special leave to appeal to the High Court. The High Court unanimously allowed the appeal. It held that consideration of the proviso is not to be undertaken by attempting to predict what a specific jury would do. Rather, in applying the proviso, the task is to decide whether a substantial miscarriage of justice has actually occurred. The appeal court must make its own assessment of the evidence and the strength of the case for or against the accused. The Court remitted the matter to the Court of Appeal for further consideration in accordance with the reasoning of the High Court.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 6 August 2004 AHMED ALI AL-KATEB v PHILIPPA GODWIN, DEPUTY SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS; JULIE HELEN KEENAN, ACTING DIRECTOR OF THE UNAUTHORISED ARRIVALS SECTION; AND MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AND INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS v ABBAS MOHAMMAD HASAN AL KHAFAJI The High Court of Australia today held that unsuccessful asylum seekers who could not be removed to another country, despite their wish to leave Australia, could continue to be held in immigration detention indefinitely. Both cases involve asylum seekers who had asked to be returned to the Middle East. The Federal Government has been unable to reach arrangements with other countries to take them, but argued that the Migration Act required they be held in immigration detention in the mean- time, regardless of whether such an arrangement could ever be reached. Mr Al-Kateb, 28, is a stateless Palestinian who was born and lived most of his life in Kuwait. He arrived in Australia in December 2000 and applied for a protection visa. His application was dismissed by the department, the Refugee Review Tribunal, the Federal Court and the Full Court of the Federal Court. Mr Al-Kateb then told the department he wished to leave Australia and be sent to either Kuwait or Gaza. In February 2003 he initiated action in the Federal Court claiming he was being unlawfully detained. The Court held that although there was no likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future, he was not unlawfully detained. Justice John Mansfield ordered Mr Al-Kateb’s release in April 2003, pending an appeal. Mr Al Khafaji, 31, is an Iraqi national who fled with his family to Syria in 1980. He arrived in Australia in January 2000. His application for a protection visa was unsuccessful and he asked to return to Syria. The Federal Court ordered his release from detention as there was no real prospect of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future. The Minister appealed to the Full Court. In August 2003, on application from the federal Attorney-General, the High Court ordered that both cases be removed into this Court to be heard together. The High Court, by a 4-3 majority, held that Migration Act provisions requiring the continued detention of unlawful non-citizens are not invalid. Under the Act, detention must continue until an unlawful non-citizen is either removed from Australia, deported or granted a visa. The majority held that as a purpose of detention was the eventual removal of unlawful non-citizens the detention was not prohibited by the Constitution. Accordingly, the Court dismissed Mr Al- Kateb’s appeal and allowed the Minister’s appeal in Mr Al Khafaji’s case.