Hopkins v Governor-General of Australia

The appeal concerned an application for leave to appeal the summary dismissal of proceedings brought by the applicant against the Governor-General of Australia. The applicant sought to argue that the Governor-General was under a legal obligation to remove and replace the Director-General of Security. The court was asked to determine whether the proposed appeal had any merit.

The central legal issues before the court involved the interpretation of the Jurisdiction of Courts (Cross-Vesting) Act 1987 (Cth) and its interaction with the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth). Specifically, the court considered whether the Jurisdiction of Courts (Cross-Vesting) Act, by investing federal jurisdiction in State Supreme Courts in "special federal matters," impliedly repealed the exclusionary provisions of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act concerning the jurisdiction of State courts. The court also examined the effect of a note introduced into section 9(1) of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act in 2000, and the historical provisions of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) regarding the status of notes within legislation.

The court reasoned that the proposed appeal was devoid of merit. It considered the Full Court of the Federal Court's observations in *Re Wilcox; Ex parte Venture Industries*, which suggested that the exclusionary provisions of section 9 of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act would likely prevail over the jurisdictional grants in the Jurisdiction of Courts (Cross-Vesting) Act, despite the latter's "notwithstanding anything contained in any other Act" language. The court found that the legislative history and the express wording of section 9 of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act indicated a clear intention to restrict the jurisdiction of State courts in matters of judicial review, and that this restriction was not overridden by the later Cross-Vesting Act.

Leave to appeal was refused. The applicant was ordered to pay the second respondent's costs. The second respondent was directed to notify the New South Wales Attorney-General of the reasons for the decision and to grant liberty to the Attorney-General to be heard regarding the operation of section 6(3) of the Jurisdiction of Courts (Cross-Vesting) Act.