Hamlet v Etienne

[2017] QCA 248

[2017] QCA 248

COURT OF APPEAL

PHILIP McMURDO JA

Appeal No 990 of 2017
QCAT No 449 of 2016

BRUCE HAMLET  Respondent/Applicant

v

SIEGFRIED ETIENNE  Appellant/Respondent

BRISBANE

WEDNESDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2017

McMURDO JA:  The parties were in dispute about a residential tenancy agreement.  An adjudicator ordered that the agreement be terminated on the ground of objectionable behaviour by the tenant, the present appellant.  Consequent upon that decision, a warrant of possession of the property issued.  The appellant sought to appeal that decision within QCAT.  The appellant asked QCAT for a stay of the adjudicator’s decision and, in particular, a stay of the enforcement of the warrant.  A senior member of QCAT refused that application.  Then on 25 January 2017, Justice Thomas, as the then president of QCAT, was asked to stay the decision of the senior member.  He made an order on the papers, refusing that application, “for lack of jurisdiction”.

The appellant lodged his notice of appeal on 1 February 2017, appealing the order of Justice Thomas, to the end of obtaining a stay of the warrant of possession.  On 8 February 2017, I refused that application.  As I then said, the appellant was asking Justice Thomas, in effect, to sit on an appeal from the senior member’s decision which refused him a stay.  As that decision by the senior member was made in the appellate division of QCAT, the decision by Justice Thomas that he lacked jurisdiction to hear an appeal from it had no apparent error.  I said that the appellant’s challenge must be one, if it could be made, to the decision of the senior member.

Very little has happened in this appeal since that refusal of the appellant’s application.  No amended notice of appeal has been filed.  On 15 June, the registry issued a timetable for the parties to follow in this appeal.  That required the appellant to provide an outline and a list of authorities together with a draft record book by 13 July 2017.  Nothing has been provided by him.  There is also evidence that he has been evicted by police in execution of the warrant for possession.

The respondent applies to have the appeal summarily dismissed. It should be dismissed because the appellant has taken no steps to prosecute it, it reveals no arguable error for review by this Court, the appeal would have no utility and it is incompetent, leave not having been sought as required by s 150 of the QCAT Act 2009.

It is ordered that the appeal be dismissed.