Archive
Category: Law
-
Logically incontestable
This case concerned the proper interpretation of the conciliation and arbitration power in the Australian Constitution. One submission by counsel for the states was that disputes are either industrial or non-industrial, an argument which Sir Victor Windeyer ironically described in the following terms: Counsel for the States started with the proposition that disputes are either… Read more →
-
A wrong thing
Sir Ninian Stephen’s oft-cited epigram on a fundamental matter of statutory interpretation: To read words into any statute is a strong thing and, in the absence of clear necessity, a wrong thing … Western Australia v Commonwealth (1975) 134 CLR 201, 251. Stephen_134_CLR_201.pdf (PDF) Read more →
-
This case is rehearsed // reversed
Brown was accused of a drug offence. One of his key witnesses was unavailable at trial. Judge Harrison of the Chatham Superior Court refused to grant an adjournment, and Brown was convicted. On appeal, the defendant argued that a miscarriage of justice had occurred. Reversing the decision of Judge Harrison, the Court of Appeal ordered… Read more →
-
Learned and experienced counsel
Starke J opened judgment with the following wry observations, following in the footsteps of Scrutton LJ who, one year previously in Elliot v Duchess Mill [1927] 1 KB 182, 201 commenced his judgment with the observation that ‘[t]he Court, with occasional assistance from counsel, took more than a day in discussing this case’. Interestingly, both… Read more →
-
An early funeral
Sir Heydon Erskine Starke had a reputation for his undirected and irascible wit. One — strictly unreported and anecdotal — quotation that is attributed to his Honour concerns a comment made at the funeral of Sir Isaac Isaacs. Reportedly, he was walking beside his colleague Rich J, who was 85 years old at the time… Read more →
-
An appeal with a hole in the middle
In dismissing Nestlé’s appeal against a decision rejecting its application for registration of the shape of its Polo mint as a trade mark, a quip apocryphally attributed to Mummery LJ is the following (though this utterance was not reported and does not appear in the reported judgment): ‘This is an appeal concerning Polos, the mint… Read more →
-
Yobbo
‘Yobbo’, which derives from the British slang ‘yob’ (a young lad), is a fairly well-accepted term of Australian English. Evidently, however, it has yet to make the transition out of literary imprisonment between inverted commas when given to judicial usage. At 9.45 pm that night [the victim] received a phone call from a person who… Read more →
-
BMX bicycle: A definition
KIRBY J: Could you explain to me what a BMX bike is? My rather cloistered life has prevented my ever getting to know what that form of bicycle is. MR R J DOUGLAS SC: I join with your Honour. I have had to find out. Your Honour, it is a smaller form of bike than… Read more →
-
The Sony Playstation
GLEESON CJ: You will explain to us how you find a matching bet? MR S J GAGELER SC: I will, yes. That brings me to the little demonstration, your Honours. Your Honours ought have a bundle of material which is entitled “Demonstration of Online Betting”. HAYNE J: How much of this is on the CD?… Read more →
-
Cricket in the High Court
Presumably his Honour’s use of the plural ‘forms’ refers to both the advent of one-day and twenty-twenty match formats. KIRBY J: Sounds like the argument at the time about the new forms of cricket. MR GAGELER: That is right. KIRBY J: When new international approaches came which were linked to the new technology of television… Read more →