Rancic v The Queen; Papp v The Queen

These were applications for special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia, brought by Mr Rancic and Mr Papp. The applicants sought to challenge decisions of the Court of Criminal Appeal of Victoria concerning charges of conspiracy to defraud. The Crown's case involved allegations that the applicants had defrauded various banks, with some of these banks being Commonwealth entities.

The central legal issues before the High Court were whether a common law charge of conspiracy to defraud could be sustained when the alleged object of the conspiracy was the defrauding of a Commonwealth bank, and whether such a charge should have been brought under the conspiracy provisions of the Commonwealth Crimes Act. The applicants argued that section 86A of the Commonwealth Crimes Act, which deals with conspiracy, covered the field in relation to conspiracies involving Commonwealth entities, thereby precluding a common law charge. They also contended that the Court of Criminal Appeal had erred in relying on English authorities, specifically *Coughlan* and *Young*, which they argued were not directly relevant to the issues of conspiracy and sub-conspiracy, nor were they Australian decisions.

The applicants' primary submission was that if a conspiracy to defraud a Commonwealth bank was to be charged, it must be laid under the specific provisions of the Commonwealth Crimes Act, not at common law. They argued that the existence of a Commonwealth statutory offence for conspiracy effectively excluded the possibility of a common law conspiracy charge in such circumstances. Furthermore, they questioned whether a substantive Commonwealth charge could be circumvented by framing the prosecution as a conspiracy, and whether a Commonwealth conspiracy charge could be avoided by characterising the alleged conduct as something other than a conspiracy.