Coulter v The Queen

Coulter appealed to the High Court of Australia against his conviction for murder. The central dispute concerned the admissibility of evidence obtained through a covert recording made by a police informant, which Coulter argued was obtained in contravention of his rights under the *Australian Privacy Act 1988* (Cth) and was therefore inadmissible under s 138 of the *Evidence Act 1995* (NSW).

The High Court was required to determine whether the covert recording constituted an unlawful interference with Coulter's privacy, and if so, whether the evidence derived from that recording should have been excluded by the trial judge. This involved considering the scope of privacy rights in the context of criminal investigations and the application of the exclusionary rule for improperly or illegally obtained evidence.

The Court held that the *Australian Privacy Act 1988* does not confer a personal right to privacy that can be invoked to exclude evidence in criminal proceedings. Instead, it regulates the conduct of government agencies. Consequently, the recording, even if it breached privacy principles, did not render the evidence unlawfully obtained in a manner that mandated exclusion under s 138 of the *Evidence Act 1995* (NSW). The Court reasoned that the purpose of s 138 is to exclude evidence obtained in contravention of the law, and the *Privacy Act* did not create a criminal offence or a civil cause of action for the conduct in question. The appeal was therefore dismissed.