Harrison v The Commissioner of Police and the Northern Territory of Australia

The appeal before the Court is between Harrison, the appellant, and the Commissioner of Police and the Northern Territory of Australia, the respondent. The issue at hand pertains to the forfeiture of a vehicle under the Criminal Property Forfeiture Act, specifically whether the appellant had effective control over the vehicle at the time of its forfeiture. The case was heard and dismissed by the Local Court, and the appellant has appealed to the Full Court.

The primary legal issue the court was required to address was whether the decision of the Local Court contained an error of law. The court needed to determine whether the Magistrate's conclusion that the appellant did not have effective control of the vehicle was a finding of fact or a question of law. Additionally, the court needed to assess whether the Magistrate considered all the facts before drawing the ultimate conclusion.

The court found that the failure of the learned Magistrate to properly consider all of the facts before drawing the ultimate conclusion that it had not been proved that Chizwell did not have effective control of the vehicle was itself an error of law. The court noted that the Magistrate's judgment did not deal with all of the facts and in fact mentioned very few of them. Furthermore, the court found that the ultimate finding was one which could not be reasonably drawn, citing Wilson v Lowery. Consequently, the appeal was upheld, and the order dismissing the objection was set aside. The order that the appellant pay the respondent’s costs in the Local Court was also set aside. The action was remitted to the Local Court to consider whether or not orders should be made in accordance with s 65(2) and (3) of the Criminal Property Forfeiture Act and to reconsider the question of costs in the light of these reasons.

[1] Wilson v Lowery [2004] WASCA 177

[2] Collector of Customs v Agfa-Gevaert Ltd (1991) 172 CLR 104

[11] Wilson v Lowery [2004] WASCA 177