Mills v Meeking

This case concerns an application for special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia, brought by Karen Michelle Meeking against Rodney Leslie Crisp, a Magistrate. The dispute centres on the application and interpretation of provisions within Part 5 of Victoria's Road Safety Act, specifically concerning drink-driving offences and the use of breath analysing instruments. The applicant was charged under section 49(1) of the Act, which deals with a range of drink-driving offences, some of which carry mandatory penalties, including licence cancellation.

The legal issues before the High Court involved the interpretation of section 49(1)(f) of the Road Safety Act, which the applicant argued created an offence of absolute liability. The applicant contended that this section, as interpreted by the Full Court, could lead to convictions for drink-driving offences even when the alcohol detected was consumed after the act of driving, rendering a person morally and socially innocent of wrongdoing. The court was required to consider whether this interpretation was consistent with the stated purposes of Part 5 of the Act, which include reducing alcohol-impaired driving and providing effective means of detecting such impairment.

The applicant's submission was that the Full Court's literal interpretation of section 49(1)(f) departed from the underlying purposes of the legislation. It was argued that the section, as applied, allowed for convictions without the possibility of a defence, even if all alcohol consumption occurred after the driving ceased. This was contrasted with an earlier interpretation by Justice Crockett, which was said to have confined the section's application more consistently with the Act's objectives. The applicant also noted recent amendments to the Act, suggesting they were an attempt to mitigate the harshness of the section, though they might still lead to similar outcomes.