A Barrister's Blog
The Lighter Side of Law
by Paul Cutler
Certorari & the pharmacist
Q: Why did the pharmacist get charged with 6 counts under the Poisons Act 1964 (WA)?
A: Because he didn’t maintain a register for scheduled drugs and didn’t keep those drugs locked in a safe.
You might think that fixing up your systems, admitting your mistake and generally getting “on with it” would be the way to. Not so for Mr Nyoni, who decided to launch multiple proceedings in various forums including the WA administrative decisions tribunal, the Supreme Court of WA as well as in the Federal Court. The Federal Court proceedings personally named several judges, government departments and others as respondents.
You know that your appeal is running into a few difficulties when the Court says your first argument: “is contrary to the historical origins of the prerogative writs, hundreds of years of case law and authority that binds this Court” (and then launches into some references to the reign of Henry III and following it through to the 16th century). But it gets even worse when:
“Despite all of this, Mr Nyoni submits that this Court has jurisdiction (not by way of an appeal regularly brought) to review decisions made by its judges, that Bird v Free was wrongly decided and this Court is not bound to follow the subsequent endorsement of that decision by several justices of the High Court in Re Jarman. Self-evidently that submission must be rejected….”
You can read this episode of the ongoing saga (and references to previous episodes you missed) in Nyoni v Bird [2022] FCAFC 61
Creative commons acknowledgment for the photograph.
Just not cricket
As summer holidays fade away I was contemplating my days at both the Sydney test match (cricket) and the Australian Open (tennis) and looking (and laughing) at the differences in the terms and conditions for both events. The following are not allowed into Melbourne...
Stitched Up in the High Court
I did battle this week with a self represented person who was trying to get their special leave application re-instated in the High Court. They needed re-instatement because they failed to comply with High Court Rule 41.10. That rule which I set out below (complete...
A great deal of noise
In 1950, Mr Scott obtained the right to exhibit motion pictures on Wednesday and Saturday evenings at the (1939 art deco) Numurkah Town Hall. Unfortunately (for Mr Scott), the town hall also had facilities for private dances and wedding receptions. Mr Scott said these...
Red Herring
In Australian Conservation Foundation v Forestry Commission and Others (1988) 19 FCR 127 at 135, Burchett J summarised one of the fundamental principles of judicial review of administrative decisions as follows: "It is true that a decision-maker may not take account...
RSS - Posts