Nile v Wood

[1988] HCATrans 110

~

~ ;;--~~

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

SITTING AS THE COURT OF

DISPUTED RETURNS

In the matter of -

The Commonwealth Electoral Act

1918-1980

Office of the Registry

Sydney	No S93 of 1987
ELAINE NILE

Petitioner

and

ROBERT WOOD

First Respondent

THE AUSTRALIAN ELECTORAL COMM:ISSION

Second Respondent

Application for costs

BRENNAN J

DEANE J

TOOHEY J

Nile(2)

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT CANBERRA ON THURSDAY, 2 JUNE 1988, AT 9.47 AM

(Continued from 16/12/87)

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

C2Tl/1/RB 88 2/6/88

MISS J. COOMBS:  I appear for Mrs Nile. (instructed by

E.L. Dearn, O'Kane & Associates)

MR R. MUECKE:  If the Court pleases, I appear for the

Commonwealth (instructed by Australian Government

Solicitor)

BRENNAN J:  We have received submissions on behalf of

Mrs Nile and on behalf of the Commonwealth.	Those have
been read and they are, of cou~se, with the	Court papers
and are part of the Court's proceedings.

MISS COOMBS:  If the Court pleases. In that case, Your Honour,

I perhaps may take it that I have dealt with the

basic questions in those documents and I feel it is

proper for me to go ahead from that point and

say that in our view the attitude of the Commonwealth

has shown a kind of disrespect to the CONSTITUTION

under which the proceedings were brought, because

that being an Act which cannot be changed except

by referendum should be given extreme respect by

Commonwealth officials quite apart from their

own viewsor the views of the government.

The fact that my client was bringing proceedings under the Commonwealth CONSTITUTION should have

alerted them to a duty to investigate the facts

and if they had investigated the facts at that

point they would have found the fact of Wood's

ineligibility on account of his want of nationality

and, perhaps, the whole matter could have been

disposed of at a very early stage if that matter

had been investigated by the officials at that

time and would have saved a lot of expense and

a lot of publicity and so forth.

Now, another aspect is, Your Honours, that

there were numerous points at which we say the

Commonwealth was at fault in the facts of this

matter.

(Continued on page 90)

C2Tl/l/MB	89	MISS COOMBS	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MISS COOMBS (continuing):  Now, even when one fills out a

tax return one is given several pages of explanation

how you are to fill it out and the government does

not assume that because they give you an assessment

form to fill out that it is all easy and you know

how to do it. It is our submission that some kind

of instruction sheet could have been given to the
candidates which perhaps would have deterred
Mr Wood from even attempting to get into the

Parliament without resolving his problems. It is our submission, Your Honour, that the question of

his nationality is a part of our ground under

section 44 relating to allegiance to a foreign power.

That is one aspect. The opposite aspect is the

positive aspect of nationality. If one is a

citizen and has citizenship and nationality one is

presumed to have allegiance to the country. If one

is not, such a presumption cannot be made. So that

we say the very facts which have emerged are facts
which could have emerged which would have resolved

the problem and which would have meant that costs

need not have been incurred which were, we say,
needlessly incurred.

Now it could have been dealt with, as I said

before, by a form showing applicants how to fill

out the nomination form. There could have been

sufficient verbal instruction given to them to

enable them to do it correctly.

BRENNAN J:  What has this to do with the question of whether

the Commonwealth should pay your costs of the

proceedings which you instituted?

MISS COOMBS:  Your Honour, I refer Your Honour to the case

which I asked to have drawn to your notice,

SCHAFTENNAAR V SAMUELS, (1975) 11 SASR 266.

(Continued on page 91)

C2T2/l/SR	90	MISS COOMBS	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MISS COOMBS (continuing):  The Court there said:

the court may have regard to the several

issues of substance that were really

contested; whether and, if so, how,
unmeritorious conduct of a party, both

in and out of court, bears on those

issues; who (having regard to the legal

onus on the prosecution,and,where applicable,

on the defendant) has succeeded on those

issues; whether those issues (or some of

them) were, in consequence of the conduct

of one party, unjustifiably or needlessly

contested, or contested at undue length.

What I am putting to Your Honour is that the

Commonwealth - we are entitled to apply for an

order for costs against the Commonwealth under the

ELECTORAL ACT, and because, we say, the reason that

Your Honours should exercise that power to order

costs against the Commonwealth is, we say, that the

Commonwealth was at fault. The Commonwealth was at

fault in not finding out that Mr Wood was ineligible

for the position for which he stood, and had they

found that out at an early stage which, in our

submission, with their resources they well could have,

then perhaps, firstly, had they found it out soon

enough perhaps he would not have stood; also, if

they found it out at the time when the proceedings

came they could have made the facts known to us or
to the Court, and thus there would not have been
the necessity for two sets of proceedings. There

would, perhaps, not have been the necessity for one

because, perhaps, Mr Wood may have appreciated his

position and withdrawn.

Now, this is why I put it to Your Honours, and I say that we know that the Commonwealth, at least

that the .electoral office relied on section 172 in

accepting the nomination form, and my submission

would be, Your Honour, if they took a nomination form

from a 10-year-old child who had correctly filled it

out, that their duty would not be completed and they	could not simply just take that when it was so obvious
that the person was not eligible. Now, in my
submission, this was a situation - a situation arose
here by reason, firstly - I have indicated these
points where they could have done something which would have meant that the matter was either not
contested at all or was contested in a short and
formal way.

(Continued on page 92)

C2T3/l/HS	91	MISS COOMBS	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MISS COOMBS: :continuing):  Does Your Honour appreciate

the point I am trying to make?

BRENNAN J:	I hear your argument, yes, Miss Coombes.
MISS COOMBS:	As far as the criminal proceedings were

concerned, Your Honour, these were being heard
the same day as NILE V WOOD came before the Court
in Sydney. It seems to me that if the Commonwealth,
with all its resources, could not know what was

going on in those proceedings and, perhaps, reassure

my client. Your Honours have seen the documents

exhibited to Mr Nile's affidavit where so much

publicity was given to the criminal proceedings

against Mr Wood and so much publicity was given

to the fact that he was of an insolvent, or at

least poor, status because he was a dole recipient.

So much publicity was given to all of that and

my submission is that my client was rightly concerned

that he had put up for Parliament and, Your Honours,

it has been proved in the later case that he was

ineligible. It is not a question of us putting

these matters without the benefit of hindsight.

We have the benefit of hindsight, Your Honouurs.

We know that Wood was ineligible and he was ineligible right from the beginning - right from the beginning -

and the Commonwealth, in my submission, could

and should have known. Public servants are investigated

to show their eligibility and this is a position

far more important than that of any public servant

and yet either investigations were not made or

they were made and they were kept secret from
this Court which, it is my submission, would be

a very wrong thing if that were the case because

it would show a want of respect for our institutions.

It is also my submission, to turn to the

Commonwealth's submissions, that the correspondence

from Mr Nugent to my client and the leader of

her party did amount to advice to my client to

pursue her action in this Court and it is not

for the Electoral Commission to say that is not (Continued on page 93)

what it was.

C2T4/l/SDL	92	MISS COOMBS	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MISS COOMBS (continuing):  Your Honours can look at those documents

and you can see that they amount to advice and

especially advice to people who had written seeking

assistance and they took those answers and they

followed them. Now, I notice the next one of the

Commonwealth's submissions is that my client was

seeking to get the seat for herself. That is very

true, Your Honour, but that would be her right to
try to do that. That is shown by RE WEBSTER and

also by the COMMON INFORMERS ACT;she had a right to

bring this matter to notice.

In fact, it is our submission that she had a duty

to bring those matters to notice in view of the fact

that the Commonwealth was not doing so. In our

submission, it was primarily the duty of the electoral

office; secondarily, the duty of the Solicitor-General.

I have always understood that the role of the

Solicitor-General is to be the guardian of the

CONSTITUTION and to see that everything that is done by the Commonwealth is done right and not to cover up when somebody is doing something wrong.

BRENNAN J:  I am not sure that I follow the significance of that

observationt Miss Coombs.

MISS COOMBS: Well, I am putting to the Court that there is a

duty in Commonwealth officers to ensure that no

ineligible person stands for the Senate or any other

high office but in this particular case - - -

BRENNAN J:	Have you any authority to support that proposition?
MISS COOMBS:	Well, Your Honour, I rely on the COMMON INFORMERS ACT

because the COMMON INFORMERS ACT shows that any person
who apprehends that a person has illegally obtained

this position has a duty to bring the matter forward.

(Continued on page 94)

C2TS/l/VH	93	MISS COOMBS	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MISS COOMBS (continuing): Well, surely, Your Honour, the

people with the most ability to know would have the
duty first and if that duty is not exercised by
the people with the highest amount of knowledge
then the duty falls on the ordinary citizen

to make up for the failure of officialdom to

preserve our institutions.

Now, Your Honours, I will pass over to

page 3 of the Commonwealth's -

BRENNAN J: Could I inquire as to the length that you

expect your submissions to take, Miss Coombs?

MISS COOMBS:	Well, Your Honour, I was told I could only take half an hour.
BRENNAN J:	The application has half an hour in which it

can be heard.

MISS COOMBS:  I am sorry, Your Honour. I was told it was

the other way, but, in any event, if Your Honour

is hurrying me, I will just - - -

BRENNAN J:  No, Miss Coombs, I am not hurrying you. I

was inquiring how long your submissions were

likely to take.

MISS COOMBS: Well, I think about 10 more minutes,

Your Honour.

BRENNAN J:  You proceed, Miss Coombs, and we will see

how the matter progresses in the time that

is available for the rest of this morning's

period. The Court will have to adjourn before

quarter past 10 in order to reassemble for a

Full Bench hearing in Court No 1. But you

proceed for as long as you think it is necessary.

(Continued on page 95)

C2T6/l/JM	94	MISS COOMBS	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MISS COOMBS: Thank you, Your Honour. Well, I will draw

Your Honours' attention to paragraph 9 of the

Commonwealth's submissions where he says that:

The petitioner did not rely in the petition

or in argument on the first respondent's

nationality status.

Well, Your Honours will recall that my client

sought to issue a subpoena to obtain the facts

about the respondent's nationality status because,

in our view, it was relevant to the question of

allegiance to a foreign power so that that statement

in paragraph 9 is definitely incorrect. We did

seek to rely on nationality status because we

believed that it was directly relevant to the

question of section 44(i) of the CONSTITUTION.

BRENNAN J:  Miss Coombs, the difficulty which occurs to

my mind in your submissions is that they seem to

overlook the grotmd on which your application was

dismissed and that is the defects in the petition

for what was put forward as a petition.

MISS COOMBS:  Yes, Your Honour.

BRENNAN J: What may have been urged, if ever a petition had

been filed, seems somewhat beside the point when

the grotmd on which the application was dismissed

was that the petition did not conform with the

requirements of the Act.

MISS COOMBS: Well, Your Honour, certainly I must concede

that the document, as filed, was defective and
that we did fail, at least partly, on that basis

and that no blame can be attributed to the
Commonwealth for that error, that is our error

and we realise that. But my submission, Your Honour,

is that the whole proceedings would have been

unnecessary and the whole problem need never have

arisen if the Commonwealth had investigated

Mr Wood's nationality status.

BRENNAN J:	Well, that is basically your point, is it?
MISS COOMBS:	Yes, that is my point, Your Honour, and I do concede the matter that Your Honours says, that that
was our fault but my tmderstanding of the
decision in NILE V WOOD was that that was not
the only reason that our application failed. If
it were, certainly, that is our fault.

(Continued on page 96)

C2T7/l/MB	95	MISS COOMBS	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MISS COOMBS (continuing):  But my submission is that the

case, as a whole, was based on a number of things

and to one of those things the question of

nationality was relevant and could have been,

perhaps, who knows because the question was not

decided, could have been conclusive. And if our

failure was due in any part to our grounds then

in that event the attitude of the Cormnonwealth was

something which left something to be desired. And

it is my view that if the Court had been aware,

at the time of those proceedings, that Wood was in

fact ineligible, and if that material had been

placed before the Court by the Cormnonwealth at that

time, such things as formal defects might well

have been overlooked. That is my submission,

Your Honour.

BRENNAN J:  Mr Muecke, we will not call upon you at this

stage because we shall have to adjourn at this

time.

MR MUECKE:	Thank you.
BRENNAN J:	The Court of Disputed Returns, therefore, will

adjourn until 12.45. We will resume then and

we will entertain your submissions at that point.

MR MUECKE:  Thank you, Your Honour.

AT 10.10 AM THE MATTER WAS ADJOURNED

UNTIL LATER THE SA.ME DAY

C2T8/1/SR	96	2/6/88
Nile(2)

UPON RESUMING AT 12.56 PM:

BRENNAN J: Yes, Mr Muecke.

MISS COOMBS:  Your Honour did ask me for some authorities on

the question of special orders and I have found some

during the break.

BRENNAN J:	I see.
MISS COOMBS:	Would Your Honour allow me to hand them up?

BRENNAN J: Yes, thank you.

MISS COOMBS:  Your Honour, what we say is that this is a case

proper for inquiry which is that the NILE V WOOD case -

there was a case proper for inquiry into Wood's qualification

and that that is grounds for making a special order and

also the fact that it was a matter of public interest -

a question of public interest, and that also is a ground

for special order. We say we were treated as if we had

maliciously and scandalously multiplied baseless charges

whereas, in fact, we were trying to bring to notice

something that was serious and that in one case, that

is the case of the bankruptcy ground, that that was a

novel point as is shown by the reference in the material

I have already submitted about Professor Lane's book.

That shows that the bankruptcy point was a novel point and we should not have an order for costs against us

on that sort of a point, Your Honour. That is in answer

to Your Honour's queries.

BRENNAN J: Thank you.

MR MUECKE:  Thank you, Your Honour. Your Honours, as I understand

the submission this morning on behalf of the petitioner

essentially was that notwithstanding the defectiveness

of the petition, the Commonwealth should pay costs

because of the claimed Commonwealth duty to investigate

a candidate's qualifications for election which, if

undertaken in this case, would have shown Mr Wood

to have been unqualified. I make four short points in

relation to that submission: first, that the petition.'s defectiveness in so far as it lacked a prayer for relief

was unrelated to this claimed Commonwealth duty.

(Continued on page 98)

C2T9/l/PLC	97	MISS COOMBS	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MR MUECKE (continuing): Secondly, the submission just could	not have been made at the time of the petitioner's
application for costs in these proceedings which,
in my submission, is the relevant time for the
purposes of consideration of that application.
Subsequent events, including the judgment of this
Court in RE WOOD delivered on 12 May 1988, cannot,
in my submission, be relevant. Thirdly, the grounds of disqualification alleged in the
petition did not include the ground of ineligibility
found by the Court in RE WOOD, namely, non-entitlement
for nomination by virtue of section 163 of the
COMMONWEALTH ELECTORAL ACT. The petition did not
refer to section 163 or nationality, as was
pointed out by this Court in NILE V WOOD, (1987)
76 ALR 91 at page 96, the petition did not in
terms assert allegiance to any foreign power nor,
indeed,did it identify which foreign power was being
referred to in the petition. And fourthly, so
far as the claimed duty on the Commonwealth to
investigate, I refer to a passage in this Court's
judgment in RE WOOD which, in my submission, is to
the effect that it was not open to the electoral
officer to refuse to return Mr Wood, notwithstanding that the petitioner was wishing to put his
qualifications in issue. At page 14 of this Court's
print of the judgment there is a passage which
reads:

That is not to say that, putting to

one side "a mere abuse of the right of

nomination or an obvious unreality" -

and then there is a referenc~ to HARFORD V LINSKEY

and PRITCHARD V MAYOR OF BANGOR -

the Electoral Officer who makes a return

has authority himself to determine the

qualifications of a candidate (who

declares and maintains that he is duly

qualified: section 170(a)(ii) of the

Act) or to refuse to return the name

of an otherwise successful candidate whose

qualifications are in issue: see

section 172 of the Act and EVANS V THOMAS

(1962) 2 Q.B. 350.

(Continued on page 99)

C2Tl0/l/SR	98	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MR MEUCKE:  I know of no duty on any other

Commonwealth officers to investigate the qualifications

of candidates and, in the light of the provisions of

section 172 of the Commonwealth ELECTORAL ACT, in

my submission, it would be difficult to imagine that

any such duty could exist.

TQOHEY J:  Mr Muecke, what do you understand to be the purpose

of 360(4) of the ELECTORAL ACT?

MR MEUCKE:  The only example that I can provideYour Honour with

is that set out in the written submissions, and that

refers to the reference in the passage from

Justice Barton in BLUNDELL V VARDON.

TOOHEY J:  But in a sense that is offered as an example of

a case where, perhaps, the conduct of Commonwealth

officers has either led to the bringing of the

petition, orperhaps led to it being prolonged

unnecessarily.

MR MEUCKE:	Yes.
TOOHEY J:	Is it fair to regard the section as, as it were,

divorced from questions of party-and-party costs as

some sort of provision comparable to that in the

CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION ACT, for instance,

by way of a form of legal assistance?

MR MEUCKE:  I would not wish to deny that considerations other

than the outcome of the proceedings would be relevant

for the purposes of the Court considering whether

an order is appropriate under section 360(4) and

perhaps the considerations referred to in the

judgment of Justice Wells in the South Australian

case Miss Coombs has referred us to, may be regarded

as relevant. But I do not think I would concede,

Your Honour, that it is a financial assistance, under any circumstances, provision. The Court must be

satisfied, in my submission, in the terms of the

section, that it is appropriate that the Commonwealth

pay the costs.

DEANE J:  In relation to your earlier submission, if later

events had been known at the time the initial order

for costs was made - and I am directing this only to

the order for payment of Senator Wood's costs - would
the fact that Senator Wood was not qualified to have been

a candidate have been relevant to the order that

Mrs Nile pay his costs? Do not answer that until I

go on. Because if it would have been, I have trouble

seeing why ,iateT events may not be relevant only in

that small area to the exercise of the power conferred by

section 360(4).

C2Tll/l/VH	99	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MR MUECKE:  Can I seek to answer Your Honour in two ways.

Firstly, in my submission, subsequent events

cannot determine the answers to whether it is

had dealt with that application on 18 December 1987 when it was made, and assume that the Court had

appropriate for the Cotmnonwealth to pay costs.

rejected that application, I would have submitted

that it is not open for the petitioner to come

back to this Court to seek to impugn that

judgment having regard to subsequent events. No

doubt a litigant can come back when new facts are known

to the litigant, but generally that would be

where the new facts had pre-dated the judgment
and not became known subsequently. The other thing

I would say, Your Honour, is that whilst Mr Wood

has been found by this Court to be not qualified,

the ground on which it has found that he is not

qualified is not one that was sought to be raised

in these proceedings in the petition that was

filed.

So, in my respectful submission, the fact

that has been now found by this Court is not

part of these proceedings.

DEANE J: Except it may have been relevant to an order that

he should obtain his costs to have known that he

was seeking to maintain his position in

circumstances where he was never qualified to hold

it?

MR MUECKE:  In my submission, what Mr Wood would have

been doing would be to seek to maintain his

position as against the matters set out in the

petition against him.

(Continued on page 101)

C2Tl2/l/SR	100	2/6/88
Nile(2)

DEANE J:	And it would not be relevant to know that he was seeking to maintain a position which he
had never held and which he should have known
he was not qualified to hold?
MR MUECKE:	I do not think I would be as absolute to say

it may not be relevant, Your Honour, but I would

submit that the relevance of it should not mean

that the Commonwealth is ordered to pay the

costs.

DEANE J:	I follow the way you put it.
MR MUECKE:	And just in relation to a couple of things

that Miss Coombs said this morning: in my

submission, the Commonwealth has not shown

disrespect for the CONSTITUTION. My written

submissions concerning what the Electoral

Commission told the petitioner, in my submission,

accurately set out what happened. Finally, I

would assure the Court that no investigation has

been kept secret from this Court.	They are my
submissions.

BRENNAN J:	Thank you, Mr Muecke.	Do you have anything
in reply, Miss Coombs?
MISS COOMBS:	Thank you.	Your Honours, in relation to

the Commonwealth's written submission 6, we

do say that the electoral office is at fault

in not giving an explanation of form C. I

invite Your Honours to look at form C. It is

at page 214 of the ELECTORAL ACT. You will see

that it is a very simplified form and the candidate

simply declares that he is eligible under the

CONSTITUTION and the Act. It does not give him

any assistance to help him to know whether he

is or not.

Now, I rely on the case that I handed up

earlier, that is WOODWORTH V BORDEN, to say

that the Commonwealth should pay the costs in

relation to a new point of law, or, at least,

my client should not have to bear the costs of

that particular question because she was raising

a new point of law or practice that had yet to

be decided - and that is in my written submissions -

but that case is an authority for that. That was

a case where the petitioner failed, Your Honour.

Also, that was a case where the petitioner failed

for formal reasons.

(Continued on pageg 102)

C2Tl3/l/JM 101 2/6/88

Nile(2) MISS COOMBS

MISS COOMBS:  Now, in section 364, Your Honours, the

ELECTORAL ACT says:

The Court shall be guided in its decisions by the substantial merits of the case and good conscience.

That is the section under which we raise the matters of saying that had the Court been informed about

the facts which ultimately came to notice about

Mr Wood, then it might not have found against us

on formal ground. The Court may have taken more
notice of section 364 because it would have had

some substantial merits to go on and not just our

formal defects. If the Court took the view that

our defect of form was serious then, perhaps, the

Court should order that the Commonwealth pay

Wood's costs and not ours because ours was the

fault of not being formally correct. But it is

certainly true that Wood was seeking to hold a

position to which he was not entitled. That is

something which, I submit, the Court should take

into account.

I also would like to refer to one of the cases

in the copy of the material from the Digest which

says: "Grounds for making special order" can be

where the public interest is involved. I have not

got the whole case there, which is WEST TORONTO

ELECTION ARMSTRONG V CROOKS. It is number 1990

at page 180 of the Digest that I have brought in

today. That case, though, was an election

expenditure case but it is only for the question
of a public interest in the matters brought forward

being inquired into. In such a case the petitioner

should not be obliged to carry those costs.

(Continued on page 103)

C2Tl4/l/MB	102	MISS COOMBS	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MISS COOMBS (continuing):  Now, if Your Honour pleases,

I would refer to the Commonwealth's written

submissions 8. We say that that submission is

incorrect because of SCHAFTENNAAR's case,

that the Court is entitled to take into account

matters which were outside the pu.rview of that case

but which the Court now knows and not only does

the Court now know them, but those facts existed

at the time of the previous case and were able to

be known, if efforts had been made to know them;

That is to say that Wood's nationality position

was a fact as at the date of the NILE V WOOD case

even though the Court did not know it and we were

not able to get the information for the Court;

the Commonwealth was in a position that it could

have got that information and we submit it should

have.

We submit that the fact that Wood was not

qualified is relevant to the question of costs and

it is our submission that section 360(4) is

appropriate to this case. Now, in relation to

these matters just raised, it is true that the defectiveness of our petition is unrelated to the Commonwealth's duties -that as far as the

second submission that this submission could not

have been made by me on the date when the judgment

was handed down - Your Honour, as things turned

out, this is the day when I am making this

submission and I submit I am entitled to bring before

the Court everything that is now available to me,

even if it was not available then.

My submission in relation to the question

raised by my friend that the grounds in the NILE V

WOOD petition did not include section 163 - it is ~y

submission that under the ground under section 44(1)

of the CONSTITUTION that an element of that ground, that is the ground that Wood had an allegiance to a

foreign power,is that he did not have a full allegiance

to Australia and that he was, in fact, a national (Continued on page 104)

of another country.

C2Tl5/l/HS	103	MISS COOMBS	2/6/88
Nile(2)

MISS COOMBS (continuing): That would have been an element

in our case and we did seek to obtain evidence
of that by a subpoena, although we were not
allowed to do so, but that would have been an
element.

Now, we do not say that it would have been

open to the electoral officer to refuse to
accept Wood's nomination necessarily, perhaps

he is covered by section 172. But it is my

submission that in a case where it is obvious,

as I said, if the form C was brought in by a young

child correctly filled out, that that would not

be the be-all and the end-all of the case. It

is my submission that perhaps certain formal

steps would have had to have been taken but,

in our submission, it is not sufficient for the

Commonwealth to rely on that, at least on the

question of costs. Thank you, Your Honour.

HIS HONOUR:  Thank you, Miss Coombs. The Court will

consider its decision.

AT 1.16 PM THE MATTER WAS ADJOURNED SINE DIE

C2Tl6/l/JM	104	2/6/88
Nile(2)