Pauline Hanson's One Nation v Sharples & Anor

[2003] HCATrans 473

[2003] HCATrans 473

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
  Brisbane  No B86 of 2002

B e t w e e n -

PAULINE HANSON’S ONE NATION

Applicant

and

TERRY PATRICK SHARPLES

First Respondent

DESMOND J. O’SHEA

Second Respondent

Application for special leave to appeal

GUMMOW J
HAYNE J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

FROM BRISBANE BY VIDEO LINK TO CANBERRA

ON FRIDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2003, AT 10.40 AM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

GUMMOW J:   In this matter the Registry has been notified that there will be no oral argument.  We have, therefore, considered the application on the papers.

The applicant seeks special leave to appeal against orders of the Court of Appeal of Queensland dismissing his application to reopen an appeal against orders setting aside a decision to register Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party as a political party under the Electoral Act 1992 (Qld).

The decision of the primary judge was made in proceedings in which Pauline Lee Hanson was sued personally and as representative of all members of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party.  The material filed in this Court does not include any order giving effect to the claim that Ms Hanson should represent others and it does not reveal who constitutes that class of persons whom it is said that Ms Hanson represented.  It is, for example, not clear whether those represented are the confined group whom the primary judge found to be members of the Party or some wider group.

If a representative order was made and the applicant was one of the persons represented, then the Court of Appeal’s order dismissing his application to reopen the appeal would be supported on the ground that the order having passed into record it could be challenged only by way of appeal or in the very limited circumstances in which such an action can be brought by a separate action.

By contrast, if no representative order was made by which Ms Hanson represented the applicant in the proceedings below, the orders made by the Court of Appeal nevertheless would stand.  As a stranger to the proceeding in the Court of Appeal, the applicant’s remedy would lie in the institution of fresh proceedings, not by way of appeal to this Court. 

An appeal to this Court therefore would enjoy insufficient prospects of success to warrant a grant of special leave. 

Accordingly, special leave, therefore, is refused with costs.

AT 10.43 AM THE MATTER WAS CONCLUDED