Plaintiff M73a-2019 & Ors v Minister for Home Affairs & Anor; Plaintiff M76-2019 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs & Anor

In matters M73 and M76 of 2019, the plaintiffs, who had been found to be refugees and brought to Australia for medical treatment, sought constitutional or other writs against the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, respectively, and the Commonwealth of Australia. The proceedings were filed after amendments to the High Court Rules 2004 (Cth) came into effect on 1 November 2018, which introduced a 28-day timeframe for defendants to file and serve a response to applications for constitutional or other writs.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether to set a timetable for the further steps in these proceedings, given that the defendants had sought to stand the matters out of the list by consent, indicating a potential non-compliance with the amended rules. The Court was concerned that numerous similar matters were not progressing, and it needed to determine if a genuine dispute existed between the parties that required resolution.

The Court reasoned that the matters could not remain dormant and that the parties needed to clarify whether a dispute was live. To facilitate this, the parties proposed and the Court agreed to a consent timetable. This involved the defendants filing their responses by 17 July 2019 and the plaintiffs filing any replies by 24 July 2019, in accordance with the amended rules. Following the filing of these documents, the matters were relisted for further directions on 20 August 2019, at which point the Court expected the nature of any dispute to be clearer, allowing for the proper assessment and determination of the proceedings.