Attorney General in and for the State of New South Wales v Markisic

The case of Attorney General in and for the State of New South Wales v Markisic involved the Attorney General seeking to resolve various procedural motions and preliminary questions raised by the defendants. The defendants, in response, filed multiple motions seeking to address these questions before the Attorney General's primary motion could be decided. The court had to determine the appropriate sequence of motions and whether the Attorney General's summons should be dismissed. Additionally, the defendants sought to defer the decision on the Attorney General's motion until their own motions were resolved. The legal issues before the court involved the procedural order of motions, the dismissal of the Attorney General's summons, and the timing of decisions on the Attorney General's motion.

The court considered the procedural applications made by both parties. It found that the Attorney General's motion should be addressed first, and that the defendants' motions were not sufficient grounds to dismiss the Attorney General's summons or to defer the decision on the primary motion. The court rejected the defendants' applications for disqualification on the basis of apprehended bias, concluding that there were no valid grounds to disqualify the judge. The reasoning was based on the procedural rules and the necessity to ensure that the court's process was not unduly delayed by peripheral issues. The court held that the Attorney General's motion must be granted, and that the defendants would bear the costs associated with the unsuccessful applications.

The court ordered that the Attorney General's motion be granted and that the defendants pay the costs associated with their unsuccessful applications. The court further ruled that the two disqualification applications were unfounded and refused them. This decision ensured that the court's process proceeded in an orderly fashion, addressing the substantive issues before it without undue delay.