MacLeod v The Queen

[2001] HCATrans 484

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
  Sydney  No S237 of 2001

B e t w e e n -

ROBERT JAMES MacLEOD

Applicant

and

THE QUEEN

Respondent

Application for expedition

GLEESON CJ

(In Chambers)

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT SYDNEY ON FRIDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 2001, AT 2.15 PM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

MR J.C. PAPAYANNI:   If your Honour pleases, I appear for the applicant.  (instructed by Jeffreys & Associates)

MR T.A. GAME, SC:   If your Honour pleases, I appear for the respondent.  (instructed by Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions)

HIS HONOUR:   This is an application for expedition, is that right?

MR PAPAYANNI:   That is correct, your Honour.

HIS HONOUR:   An expedition of a special leave application.  What is your attitude, Mr Game?

MR GAME:   Your Honour, it partly depends, of course, on the Court listing, but the points we would make against it are that there has been three years delay since conviction, for which the applicant is largely responsible.

HIS HONOUR:   I may have misunderstood what I read but I thought that the application is based on the proposition that unless the matter is expedited, the sentence will probably be served by the time the appeal comes on.

MR GAME:   Yes, your Honour.  That may or may not be so because the sentence expires on 30 July 2002, so even if a grant of special leave were given, the prospects of it being resolved by July 2002 may be limited.

HIS HONOUR:   It depends which way it is resolved.

MR GAME:   Yes.  The third point we would make is that it has very limited prospects of success.

HIS HONOUR:   Do I understand that rightly, Mr Papayanni, the basis of your application, is that ‑ ‑ ‑

MR PAPAYANNI:   Added to that would be the question as to this matter – there seems to be some misunderstanding about Peters’ Case and in Peters’ Case, of course, the situation was a conspiracy to defraud and the issue that was raised here about the claim of right and the mental element in relation to the matter was not in issue.

HIS HONOUR:   We are only looking at the question of expedition at the moment of the special leave application.

MR PAPAYANNI:   Yes.  The only basis I can put it in relation to expedition is the question that your Honour put that – and normally he

would have come up for parole in January.  He has been in custody for five years from 30 January 1997.  That was when he was arrested on an extradition matter.  Then there is a long delay until the trial was heard in February and March 1999 and then he was not sentenced until 4 February 2000.

HIS HONOUR:   Yes.  I will order an expedition in this matter and direct that the matter be listed in the special leave list which I expect will be held on 5 March 2002.

MR GAME:   If the Court pleases.

HIS HONOUR:   If there is any problem about that date, then the Registry will be in touch with you to fix an alternative date.  Call the next matter, please.

AT 2.17 PM THE MATTER WAS CONCLUDED