Scott v The Queen

The applicant, Scott, sought special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia from a decision of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory. The dispute concerned the nature and extent of the pre-trial jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, particularly in circumstances where the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) declined to proceed with a prosecution after committal, transmission of papers, case management, and the fixing of a trial date.

The central legal issue before the High Court was the supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory in the period after committal for trial but before the filing of an indictment, especially when the prosecution subsequently decided not to proceed. This involved considering the scope of the Supreme Court's powers and practices in such pre-indictment scenarios, and whether an inherent jurisdiction existed to make orders, such as costs, against the Crown in extreme circumstances.

The applicant argued that the Supreme Court's jurisdiction and practices in this pre-indictment phase required clarification, particularly given the limited authority on post-committal, pre-indictment proceedings. The Court considered whether the Supreme Court possessed a broad discretion to award costs against the Crown in such situations, even in the absence of specific statutory provisions, and whether the present case presented circumstances warranting the assertion of such an inherent jurisdiction. The Court noted that the strength of the prosecution case could have been evaluated earlier, as a key witness's credibility was known to the DPP well before the trial date was fixed.