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High Court Bulletin

Produced by the Legal Research Officer,
High Court of Australia Library

[2021] HCAB 7 (10 September 2021)

A record of recent High Court of Australia cases: decided, reserved for judgment, awaiting hearing in the Court’s original jurisdiction, granted special leave to appeal, refused special leave to appeal and not proceeding or vacated

1: Summary of New Entries
2: Cases Handed Down
3: Cases Reserved
4: Original Jurisdiction
5: Section 40 Removal
6: Special Leave Granted
7: Cases Not Proceeding or Vacated
8: Special Leave Refused

1: Summary of New Entries

2: Cases Handed Down

Case	Title
Director of Public Prosecutions Reference No 1 of 2019	Criminal Law
Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd v Voller; Nationwide News Pty Limited v Voller; Australian News Channel Pty Ltd v Voller	Defamation

3: Cases Reserved

Case	Title
Port of Newcastle Operations Pty Limited v Glencore Coal Assets Australia Pty Ltd & Ors	Competition Law
Park v The Queen	Criminal Law
Charisteas v Charisteas & Ors	Family Law
Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs v Viane	Immigration
Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union & Anor v Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd	Industrial Law
ZG Operations Australia Pty Ltd & Anor v Jamsek & Ors	Industrial Law
Arsalan v Rixon; Nguyen v Cassim	Torts

4: Original Jurisdiction

5: Section 40 Removal

6: Special Leave Granted

Case	Title
Hoang v The Queen	Criminal Law
The Queen v Rolfe	Criminal Law

7: Cases Not Proceeding or Vacated

8: Special Leave Refused

2: Cases Handed Down

The following cases were handed down by the High Court of Australia during the September 2021 sittings.

Criminal Law

Director of Public Prosecutions Reference No 1 of 2019

M131/2020: [2021] HCA 26

Judgment delivered: 1 September 2021

Coram: Kiefel CJ, Gageler, Keane, Gordon, Edelman, Steward and Gleeson JJ

Catchwords:

Criminal law – Recklessness – Where s 17 of Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) provides that person who, without lawful excuse, recklessly causes serious injury is guilty of indictable offence – Where Court of Appeal of Supreme Court of Victoria in R v Campbell [1997] 2 VR 585 held that recklessness means person foresaw that serious injury probably will result from act or omission – Where Crimes Act amended following Campbell with significant, substantive and direct effect on s 17 – Where High Court cast doubt on correctness of Campbell in Aubrey v The Queen (2017) 260 CLR 305 – Where accused charged with recklessly causing serious injury under s 17 of Crimes Act – Where trial judge directed jury in relation to recklessness consistently with Campbell – Where accused acquitted – Where Director of Public Prosecutions (Vic) referred correctness of Campbell as point of law to Court of Appeal – Whether Parliament left meaning of recklessness in s 17 of Crimes Act to courts – Whether recklessness in s 17 of Crimes Act has meaning stated in Campbell.
Words and phrases – "culpability and criminality", "elements of the existing offences", "expert review of the law", "extensive…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

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Details

Case: [2021] HCAB 7
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The case of Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd v Voller; Nationwide News Pty Limited v Voller; Australian News Channel Pty Ltd v Voller involved a challenge to the liability of media companies as publishers of comments made by third parties on their Facebook pages. The media companies argued that they were not publishers of the defamatory comments and that intention to communicate defamatory matter was necessary for them to be held as publishers. The High Court of Australia dismissed the appeals, holding that the media companies were indeed publishers of the comments and that strict liability applied. The court found that the media companies created, operated, and maintained the Facebook pages, hyperlinked news stories to their pages, and encouraged and facilitated comments on their posts. The court held that the media companies had participated in the process of communication of the defamatory matter to a third party and were therefore liable as publishers. The decision highlights the potential liability of media companies for defamatory comments made by third parties on their online platforms.

Orders