Price V Yorkston and ANOR B14/1997 [1998] HCATrans 435 (20 November 1998)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry

Brisbane No B14 of 1997

B e t w e e n -

RONALD JOHN PRICE

Applicant

and

A. YORKSTON, SM

FirstRespondent

MICHAEL FRANCES BRENNAN

Second Respondent

Application for special leave to appeal

GLEESON CJ

KIRBY J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

FROM BRISBANE BY VIDEO LINK TO CANBERRA

ON FRIDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 1998, AT 10.58 AM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

MR R. J. PRICE: May it please, your Honours, I appear for myself in this matter.

MR M.D. HINSON: May it please the Court, I appear for the Crown. (instructed by the Crown Law, Department of Justice, Brisbane)

GLEESON CJ: Thank you, Mr Price.

MR PRICE: Your Honour, I have an application that due to ill health I ask you to accept the summary of argument that I submitted for today be read into the record. I have medical conditions that I have trouble reading from the books in public and ask that the documents that have been filed be read for general reference into the record.

GLEESON CJ: Well, they are here, we have read them.

MR PRICE: Thank you, your Honour. The cases that pertain to particulars have been established for many years in this country, your Honour. They are all, I believe, adequately covered. Before Justice Gaudron last week, last Thursday, the Crown withdrew their dependence on the certificate of dismissal mentioned in their summary of argument and they purported to then rely on another certificate of dismissal dated 21/8/1998, which is, I submit, another nullity as well, your Honour, because the matter was not dismissed on the merits. The matter was not heard on any evidence whatsoever and by all law in this country the certificate of dismissal must be by the justice or justices that heard this matter.

GLEESON CJ: Yes, go ahead.

MR PRICE: The whole matter is that I have persisted, right from the beginning of this matter, for particulars related to this so-called charge. Time and time again, before all the courts and the submissions and the affidavits pertaining to this, right up to the court below, the court below did not entertain the appeal and yet, as soon as I came to the High Court, the Crown brought it on for dismissal before the Magistrates' Court and have not denied on affidavit or anywhere in the court that it was deliberately brought on for dismissal to kill this matter in the High Court and I submit, from reading the material, the matter is not dead. I can still be charged under the Criminal Code for dangerous driving, as an example, your Honour, plus I have the cost still against me, which the Crown is persisting with, from the judgment of White J in the Supreme Court, of which there is no record, your Honour, pertaining to it.

KIRBY J: No record pertaining to Justice White's decision? I think we have - - -

MR PRICE: That is correct, your Honour, none being provided to me, though I have an account of that record, which I then produced at a hearing and, I submit - - -

KIRBY J: But that is page 20 of the application book, Justice White's decision.

MR PRICE: That is right, your Honour.

KIRBY J: Do you have that?

MR PRICE: The record? I have a tape recording of that record, not on my person, your Honour.

KIRBY J: No, but do you have the certified reasons of her Honour on page 20 and following of the record?

MR PRICE: That is correct, sorry, your Honour, I misunderstood. Costs were awarded against me in that matter, your Honour, as well. JusticeWhite also found there were breaches of natural justice and due process.

KIRBY J: So, the proceedings themselves have been dismissed against you and you want to have special leave from this Court in order to contest an order for costs, effectively? That is really what it is about. We would never give special leave for that purpose.

MR PRICE: Not necessarily, your Honour. Your Honour, the special leave questions pertain to possible further charges before the circumstances. It was never dismissed on the merits and there is still a possibility, and a legal possibility, of being re-charged on this issue. It has never been finalised, your Honour. I still do not have particulars of any alleged offence that were ever against me that I may have committed any offence that I had to answer before a court. I submit that I have given good reason for this Court to hear it. It is still a live matter, your Honour, and further, the Crown made the issue again when they relied on a purported certificate of dismissal dated 4/7/1997, and said that I could not be prosecuted because of this dismissal. Well, they have withdrawn their reliance on this certificate and, at best, they rely on the one that was issued by the same clerk of the court, I believe, on 21/8/1998, which was issued when I asked for a copy of the first one, because it was never issued against me. This document can only be used by myself in the court, also, your Honour.

GLEESON CJ: Yes.

MR PRICE: The separation of powers and due process of law, your Honour, demands that the particulars be produced and that this matter be finalised before the High Court. The authority of the High Court is being held in contempt here in these matters. Nowhere can the Crown particularise any offence that I have committed on this day. Now, how can I answer any charge in the future or how can they say I cannot be charged in the future if particulars have never been issued and the matter has not been heard on the merits, your Honour?

I submit that the contemptuous way that the Crown has held this is - on the list of documents, your Honour, that I provided two days ago to the High Court, document No 4 is in answer to my application for judicial review, is an eight-page document from the Crown law office demanding that I supply further and better particulars on my application for judicial review, which took me 52 pages. They demanded an in-depth thing on every breach of natural justice known. I had to submit to them. This is in reply to me, asking for particulars in the courts and the terrible thing about it, I went to the court below and they had all those uncontested affidavits and submissions as to law. They would not look at it, and invited submissions from the Crown that I had no right to be there when the Crown knew full well that I did have a right to be there on judicial review. But it went back and it was dismissed by a magistrate, a court constituted by a magistrate, much lower than a Supreme Court or the court below, on the same argument that was open to the Supreme Court, your Honours.

I state that the production of documents even Justice White found that I required for this case, they still have not been presented, and this is since 1996, your Honours; there is no openness here. I submit that the whole due process and natural justice procedure is skew-whiff in Queensland, your Honour, if this is allowed to get away and it will be set as a precedent for the rest of the country. They will just look at this case and see the background to it, over not one case but many, and look at it and say, "Well this is what the High Court allowed to go", when the matter is still a live matter, your Honours. I cannot argue any further, your Honour, except on the documents that I have presented.

GLEESON CJ: Thank you.

MR PRICE: May I make one further point?

GLEESON CJ: Yes you may.

MR PRICE: Further to the showing of the contempt Queensland has to separation of powers and due justice, Mr Hinson, appearing for the a Crown, since April this year and during carriage of this matter, has been an acting District Court judge in Queensland, your Honour, financed by the police prosecution and instructed by the Commissioner of Police. I submit that if that is not perceived bias and something that must be acted on by this Court to protect the rights of individuals before it. I have been refused legal aid by this same body in Queensland that governs. There is no separation of powers, your Honour, and I have got to come here, as an unrepresented person, after 10 years of persecution, and beg this Court for justice, and I think it is getting a little bit too much, and justice is sort of trodden down in the street, your Honour, and I submit that this - - -

GLEESON CJ: Mr Price, one of the submissions that Mr Hinson has made is that if your application is unsuccessful, you should be ordered to pay the respondents' costs of the application; what do you say about that?

MR PRICE: I say, your Honour, that I came to this Court, I had a live issue to come to this Court, the matter was still live when I came to this Court, on their own submissions, right up to 21/8/1998, your Honour, I was before this Court at all times, your Honour, and I asked in the special circumstances of this case, which is documented, that costs not be visited against me, your Honour. It would be further punishment, for the right. I came to this Court when this matter was live, your Honour. It was them that brought it on, against all submissions to myself to the courts below, so that the High Court would be able to hear this matter right through on due process and natural justice, and I ask the Court, not to visit costs; it would destroy me, and also it would send a message that there is no rights whatsoever in this country. That is all.

GLEESON CJ: This is an application for special leave to appeal against a decision of the Court of Appeal of Queensland refusing leave to appeal against a decision of a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland in an application under the Judicial Review Act 1991 . The decision which it was sought to review was a decision of a magistrate refusing an application by the applicant for an order that further and better particulars be provided of a complaint that had been issued against him.

The Court is of the view that the case does not raise any issue appropriate for the grant of special leave to appeal to this Court and that there is not sufficient reason to doubt the correctness of the decision of the Court of Appeal to warrant the grant of special leave.

Notwithstanding the submissions that have been put by Mr Price, the Court is also of the view that the applicant must pay the costs of the respondent of this application.

AT 11.11 AM THE MATTER WAS CONCLUDED