Grieve v Lewis

In *Grieve v Lewis*, the High Court of Australia considered a dispute concerning the application of regulations made under the *War Precautions Act 1914* (Cth). The specific regulation in question related to the offence of dissuading a person from continuing to be engaged in certain activities.

The central legal issue before the Court was whether the regulations, which were not formally tendered as evidence, could be treated as being in evidence by virtue of their nature as Commonwealth regulations. The Court was required to determine the proper approach to proving or assuming the existence and content of such regulations in a legal proceeding.

The High Court held that regulations made under the *War Precautions Act* were of such a public and official nature that they could be judicially noticed and treated as being in evidence without formal proof. The Court reasoned that it was impractical and unnecessary to require formal tendering of every regulation in every case, especially when they were readily accessible and established as part of the law of the Commonwealth. This principle of judicial notice facilitated the efficient administration of justice by allowing courts to rely on the known existence of statutory instruments.