Price v A Yorkston, SM and Anor

[1998] HCATrans 96

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
  Brisbane  No B14 of 1997

B e t w e e n -

RONALD JOHN PRICE

Applicant

and

A. YORKSTON SM

First Respondent

MICHAEL FRANCIS BRENNAN

Second Respondent

Application for extension of time

GAUDRON J

(In Chambers)

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT BRISBANE ON THURSDAY, 16 APRIL 1998, AT 10.35 AM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

MR R.J. PRICE:   Your Honour, Ronald John Price for himself.

MR M.D. HINSON:   If your Honour pleases, I appear for both respondents.  (instructed by the Crown Solicitor for Queensland)

HER HONOUR:   Yes, thank you.

MR HINSON:   Your Honour, may I indicate that the first respondent’s attitude is that he will abide the order of the Court and I only intend to make submissions on behalf of the second respondent, Brennan.

HER HONOUR:   Yes, thank you.  Mr Price, this is an application to extend time for the filing of your summary of argument in relation to your application for special leave to appeal, which summary of argument in accordance with the rules should have been filed in May 1997.  Do you understand that?

MR PRICE:   That is correct, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   There is a deal of material here which, on my reading, seems not to go to that issue.  So I propose to allow people 20 minutes and 20 minutes only, that being the amount of time you would receive on a special leave application and it would be ludicrous for you to have more than 20 minutes on an application to extend time.  So you will have 20 minutes to explain why the rules were not complied with and why the time should now be extended.  I do not want to hear any other matter than that.  That is why you are here today.  Do you understand that?

MR PRICE:   I understand that, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Your 20 minutes commences now, Mr Price.

MR PRICE:   Your Honour, during this period of time when it was filed I was involved with litigation as to the basic charge.  It was taken up with argument about not being supplied particulars and breaches of natural justice through the courts, as is documented there in the documents.  At the same time I was to be a witness at the .....Ryan Inquiry and at the same time my health is not and was not such that I could handle all matters at once.  The materials there in the affidavits, your Honour, I must refer to it because it goes to the heart, even just cursorily reading the affidavits, the heart of the circumstances surrounding this over a long period of time ‑ ‑ ‑

HER HONOUR:   No, the only relevant matters are why the rules were not complied with and why time should now be extended.

MR PRICE:   Right, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   The background matter is matter that may or may not be relevant - I do not know - in the event that your special leave application is kept alive today and comes on for hearing on another occasion, but the question is today whether your application is out of Court ‑ ‑ ‑

MR PRICE:   Right, your Honour.  I just stress to you that I am unrepresented and my health is absolutely had it and I have waited since filing of this matter from Mr Popple, who said it would be brought on immediately.  He said that he would have a Judge here ‑ ‑ ‑

HER HONOUR:   Well, do not worry about that.  Why have you not ‑ ‑ ‑

MR PRICE:   No, this is the fact.  This is why the time has not been done even in that period of time.  I have concentrated - waited on this hearing.  Now, my health ‑ ‑ ‑

HER HONOUR:   Yes.  Well, why did you not put on - you put on a document of some 37 pages in relation to today’s application, but you have not put on a document in relation to your special leave application?

MR PRICE:   Your Honour, I had prepared in that meantime a draft submission - summary of argument.  That had been completed in this time as well, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   So you have got it now?

MR PRICE:   I have got that here, but it is the points here I have raised as well for costs which is applicable under the Judicial Review Act for a matter arising out of the application under the Judicial Review Act which I have placed in that 36 pages.

HER HONOUR:   That does not concern me.  I am concerned whether your special leave application is to continue or is to be pronounced dead today.

MR PRICE:   My argument is that the principle of natural justice and procedural fairness would warrant that this matter be continued, your Honour, and that I have worked on this and I have got an applicant’s summary of argument prepared now, a draft copy.  It just needs a - I could produce that even now, right.  Now, it has been extremely harrowing circumstances I found myself in during this period of time from filing the application and I believe that the evidence points to the matter being withdrawn so that it could possibly kill this matter in the High Court, but I stressed to the magistrate that it should be left live and argued and argued in the courts that the matter be left live to be handled by this Court, which it was before, because I have applied within due time.  This is not a matter of applying out of time or anything, your Honour.

The documents there go to exceptional extenuating circumstances that I have found myself in with the respondents over a long period of time and that is purely the reason for the documentation because the cases that I have read go - but most of the cases I have read, I have not found any that the person who is applying for within time for the extension time, it is mainly from interlocutory orders or attempting to stay proceedings in the lower court to extend the time.  I am incapable of standing on my feet and arguing law, your Honour, because I am not trained and my health is extremely bad.  I just raise these as extenuating circumstances.  I have waited in this period of time and ‑ ‑ ‑

HER HONOUR:   Am I to take it that you are in a position to file a summary of argument within seven days?

MR PRICE:   Yes, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Very well.  At this stage, subject to what I hear from Mr Hinson, I will proceed on that basis.  You can sit down at this stage.

MR PRICE:   Thank you, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Mr Hinson, do you have any difficulty with a notion that the outline of argument will be filed within seven days?

MR HINSON:   No difficulty, your Honour.  If your Honour was prepared to make an order that if it was not filed within seven days, that the matter ‑ ‑ ‑

HER HONOUR:   That the matter would then stand dismissed?

MR HINSON:   Yes.

HER HONOUR:   Yes.

MR HINSON:   A guillotine order, in other words.

HER HONOUR:   Yes.  Mr Price, did you hear that?

MR PRICE:   I heard it, your Honour, yes.

HER HONOUR:   At the moment I would be minded to make an order extending time by seven days and providing that if the summary of argument were not filed in those seven days that the application would stand dismissed.  Do you understand what that means?

MR PRICE:   I understand, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Do you have any difficulty with that?

MR PRICE:   No, your Honour, but I would stress that to prepare a case on this - that there is constitutional points and others raised.  I quite accept what you have done and I am pleased, your Honour, and I stress that I have not deliberately gone out of my way to annoy this Court or any other court.  The situation is that to properly prepare this case I would ask that costs, your Honour, be pursued as a matter arising out of the original application.

HER HONOUR:   At this stage I think probably the simplest course is to make the costs of today costs in the application, to abide the outcome of the application for special leave.  Do you understand what I am talking about?

MR PRICE:   I believe so, yes, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Yes.  So that I will also be minded to order that the costs of today abide the outcome of the application for special leave.

MR PRICE:   Yes, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Do you have any difficulty with that?

MR PRICE:   No, your Honour.  I accept that your word is final, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Very well.  In those circumstances, the order will be as follows: 

that the time limited by Order 69A rule 6 for the filing of a summary of argument be extended up to and including 23 April 1998;

secondly, that the time for deemed abandonment pursuant to Order 69A rule 13 be also extended up to and including 23 April;

thirdly, if the summary of argument is not filed on or before 23 April, the application for special leave will stand dismissed;

finally, costs of today to abide the outcome of the application for special leave.

MR PRICE:   I will accept what you have said, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Yes.  I am not concerned so much whether you accept it because you do not have a choice about that ‑ ‑ ‑

MR PRICE:   That is what I mean.

HER HONOUR:   ‑ ‑ ‑ but I am concerned to know that you understand it.

MR PRICE:   Yes.

HER HONOUR:   You realise that if a document is not here by the 23rd you are out of Court?

MR PRICE:   Right, your Honour.  What about the times after that?  Will they just proceed as the normal times?

HER HONOUR:   Yes.  What will happen then is, as I understand it, that the respondents will have whatever the rules provide, 21 days, to file their outline of argument, and you will then have seven days to file your reply.

MR PRICE:   Right, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Then you will have to prepare your application books.  The Registry will settle an index and you will have to prepare your application books within 30 days of the index being settled.  The matter will then come on for hearing when the Court next determines a special leave list for Brisbane.

MR PRICE:   Right, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   That probably, at the latest, would be June.

MR PRICE:   June this year, your Honour?

HER HONOUR:   Yes.  That is not a definite thing but if everything is done in accordance with the rules from now on, the probabilities are that it would be listed here in Brisbane for hearing in June.

MR PRICE:   Yes, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   But that is, of course, not definite.  There might not be enough work for the Court to come to Brisbane in June and there are all sorts of possibilities, but that is the likely thing.

MR PRICE:   Yes, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Is there anything else?

MR HINSON:   There is only one other matter, your Honour.  I would ask for a certificate for the attendance of counsel under Order 71 rule 62.

HER HONOUR:   Yes, I will certify accordingly.

MR HINSON:   Thank you, your Honour.

MR PRICE:   Also, your Honour, the documentation lists vexatious and malicious harassment of himself through the courts over many years and I have asked for somehow this Court to make an order that action - I have not done anything that I anticipate any problems, your Honour, but because this has been an ongoing situation where we were under trespass on our own property, it is uncontested by the Crown with anything that has been placed before you.  I find that I have to come to this Court for protection, your Honour, to stop any more of this type of prosecution against me and trespass.

HER HONOUR:   Mr Price, all that is before me today is an application to extend time, but I can take it from you, can I, Mr Hinson, that there will be no obstruction?

MR HINSON:   Certainly, your Honour, yes. 

MR PRICE:   Thank you, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Yes, and that would ‑ ‑ ‑

MR PRICE:   It is a very big worry to my family, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   Yes.  Well, that I think is the most I can do on this application.

MR PRICE:   Thank you, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   In those circumstances ‑ ‑ ‑

MR PRICE:   The other point, your Honour, may I be so bold?  This discovery on documents that the Crown have that I have listed on here, that I know the fresh evidence rule, I know Mickelberg Case and the others, but in this circumstances the matters that I have raised in the affidavits go to actually perversion of the course of justice ‑ ‑ ‑

HER HONOUR:   That is not a proceeding that is before me.

MR PRICE:   This is my point, your Honour.  I am not legally trained.  On a normal matter I can research, but this type of ‑ ‑ ‑

HER HONOUR:   Yes, but the only matter that is before me today is the application for extension of time.  Now, because you have not filed your summary of argument to date, the matter has been in limbo.  It remains in limbo unless and until you file your document.

MR PRICE:   I think I understand that.

HER HONOUR:   Things may be different when it is done and they will certainly be different if it is not done.

MR PRICE:   I understand, your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   So I think at this stage you should consider yourself very fortunate that the matter is still in limbo.

MR PRICE:   I stress, your Honour, during this period of time I was requested by a commission of inquiry to give evidence and the evidence is in there that there was manipulation of that inquiry and I do not like being on the brunt of that sort of thing.  Thank you.  I would just like to stress that without overstepping the mark with your Honour.

HER HONOUR:   That is a matter that is not directly relevant to today’s proceedings.

MR PRICE:   That is correct, your Honour, thank you.

HER HONOUR:   In those circumstances, the Court will adjourn sine die.

AT 10.50 AM THE MATTER WAS ADJOURNED