Gomez, In the matter of an application for leave to issue or file [2019] HCATrans 185 (11 September 2019)

Last Updated: 17 September 2019

[2019] HCATrans 185

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
Melbourne No M87 of 2019

In the matter of -

an application by IRWIN GOMEZ for leave to issue or file

EDELMAN J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT CANBERRA ON WEDNESDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2019, AT 9.42 AM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia
HIS HONOUR: On 27 June 2019, the applicant filed a further application for leave to issue or file a writ of summons in this Court seeking declaratory relief in the original jurisdiction. For the reasons that I now publish I dismiss the application.

The order is:

1. The application is dismissed under rule 13.03.1 of the High Court Rules 2004 (Cth).

I publish that order.

I direct that the reasons, as published, be incorporated into the transcript.

On 24 May 2019, Nettle J directed the Registrar to refuse to issue or file an application by the applicant, Mr Gomez, for a writ of summons, without the prior leave of a Justice of this Court. The applicant now seeks that leave.

This is the tenth application filed by the applicant in relation to this Court’s refusal on 15 August 2018 to grant the applicant special leave to appeal from the judgment of Moshinksy J^[1]. The first nine applications are set out in the reasons that I have just delivered in In the matter of an application by Irwin Gomez for leave to issue or file (M86 of 2019).

In this tenth application, the applicant challenges the decisions of Keane J and Gordon J, given respectively on 20 February 2019 and 30 April 2019. Each of the applications with which their Honours were concerned was brought in the original jurisdiction of this Court. Each had raised issues that, directly or indirectly, challenged the judgment and orders of Moshinsky J. Keane J and Gordon J each dismissed the respective applications as an abuse of process. The applicant now challenges those dismissals, alleging that they are unconstitutional. He submits that the conditions for special leave to appeal cannot be “transported” to applications in this Court’s original jurisdiction and he says that the special leave disposition did not mention jurisdictional error.

For broadly the same reasons that I have given in matter M86 of 2019, there is no arguable basis to this application. The application is vexatious and an abuse of process. It should be dismissed without an oral hearing pursuant to r 13.03.1 of the High Court Rules 2004 (Cth).

As the applicant recognised in his ninth application, persistent attempts to relitigate the same subject matter are capable of being characterised as vexatious. Under s 77RN of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth), this court has the power, on its own initiative, to make a vexatious proceedings order. The point at which it should be considered whether to make such an order, and if so the terms of the order, has now well and truly been reached.

Please adjourn the Court.

AT 9.42 AM THE MATTER WAS CONCLUDED

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^[1] See Gomez v Carrafa & Anor [2018] HCASL 225.