Belan v Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW)

The plaintiff, Mr Belan, sought judicial review of decisions made by the District Court of New South Wales. The dispute arose from Mr Belan's appeal to the District Court against a conviction and sentence imposed by the Local Court. Following the dismissal of his appeal against conviction, Mr Belan's bail was revoked. He subsequently withdrew his appeal against sentence after the District Court refused an application to disqualify a prosecutor and issued a *Parker* warning. The proceedings before the Court of Appeal concerned whether the District Court's decisions were affected by apprehended bias and jurisdictional error.

The Court of Appeal was required to determine two primary legal issues. First, whether the District Court's decision to revoke Mr Belan's bail without hearing from him constituted a breach of procedural fairness, and if so, whether this breach, or the District Court's subsequent conduct, gave rise to apprehended bias. Second, the Court had to consider whether the District Court's dismissal of the appeal against conviction, in circumstances where bail was revoked without a hearing, amounted to jurisdictional error.

The Court found that the concession by the Director of Public Prosecutions that there was a breach of procedural fairness in the revocation of bail was well-founded. However, the Court held that this breach, and the subsequent conduct of the District Court, did not give rise to an appearance of bias. The Court reasoned that the *Parker* warning and the refusal of the disqualification application were distinct from the initial bail revocation and did not demonstrate a predisposition against Mr Belan. Furthermore, the Court concluded that the dismissal of the conviction appeal was not affected by jurisdictional error, as the District Court had the power to dismiss the appeal and there was no evidence that it failed to exercise that power according to law.

Consequently, the summons filed by Mr Belan seeking judicial review was dismissed, with costs. The separate application for bail was also dismissed.