Palmer v The Queen

This matter came before the High Court of Australia on an application for special leave to appeal. The applicant, Mr Palmer, sought to challenge a decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal. The Crown was the respondent. The dispute concerned the reliability of a key Crown witness and whether the Court of Criminal Appeal had adequately scrutinised that evidence.

The legal issue before the High Court was whether the Court of Criminal Appeal had misdirected itself in its approach to the evidence of a single Crown witness, particularly where that witness was alleged to be objectively unreliable. The applicant argued that in such circumstances, an appellate court is obliged to subject the evidence to special scrutiny, a principle purportedly established in cases such as *Morris*.

The applicant contended that the Crown case rested on a single witness whose character rendered them objectively unreliable. They argued that this situation constituted one of the "rare cases" where an appellate court should depart from the general rule that credibility is a matter for the tribunal of fact. The applicant submitted that the Court of Criminal Appeal had failed to recognise this as a rare case and had instead relied solely on the jury's assessment of credibility, thereby misdirecting itself and failing to apply the principles from *Morris*.