Stella v Griffith University - [2025] QCA 140

[2025] QCA 140

COURT OF APPEAL

BRADLEY JA

Appeal No 1851 of 2025
QCATA No 13 of 2024

RICHARD JOSEPH STELLA Applicant

GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY Respondent

BRISBANE

WEDNESDAY, 30 JULY 2025

JUDGMENT

BRADLEY JA: On 22 April 2025, Mr Stella applied for leave to appeal from a final decision of the appeal tribunal of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal. He named the University as the respondent. The appeal tribunal decision was made by a judicial member on 18 March 2025. By it, the appeal tribunal dismissed Mr Stella’s appeal from a decision of the Information Commissioner (the Commissioner) on an external review made on 7 December 2023 and confirmed the Commissioner’s decision to refuse Mr Stella access to certain documents held by the University.

As Mr Stella noted in his written submissions, the Commissioner was obliged not to include “information that is claimed to be exempt information or contrary to public interest information”[1] in the reasons for the decision. When the appeal tribunal considered Mr Stella’s appeal, it adopted what Mr Stella described as its “general practice”, namely, “to keep the disputed material from the applicant during the proceedings”.

[1]Right to Information Act 2009 (Qld), s 108(3).

On 18 March 2024, the appeal tribunal directed the parties to file two copies of an indexed and paginated hearing bundle separated into a Part A and a Part B. The tribunal directed that the Part A documents were “to be documents in the form as currently released to the applicant", and the Part B documents would be “documents in specific issue in the appeal”, that is those documents to which the applicant sought access and was denied in an unredacted form.

The tribunal directed that the applicant is, “not presently permitted access to the Part B documents pending further order of the Tribunal in this matter.” The same day, the tribunal also directed:

“Until further order, pursuant to section 66(1) of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld), the publication of the Part B documents is prohibited. For the avoidance of doubt, this prohibition does not apply to the redacted versions of the same documents previously provided by the Respondent to the Applicant.”

The power of the appeal tribunal to make these non-publication orders depended upon the tribunal considering it necessary for one of the reasons listed in section 66(2)(a) to (e) of the QCAT Act, namely: to avoid interfering with the proper administration of justice; or to avoid endangering the physical and mental health or safety of a person; or to avoid offending public decency or morality; or to avoid the publication of confidential information or information whose publication would be contrary to the public interest; or for any other reason in the interests of justice.

From the material before this Court, it does not appear that the appeal tribunal has made any further order altering or setting aside the non-publication orders made on 18 March 2024. The Judicial Member who heard the matter in the…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

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Details

Case: [2025] QCA 140
Decision Date: 30 JULY 2025

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In the case of Stella v Griffith University, the applicant, Richard Joseph Stella, sought leave to appeal a decision of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) appeal tribunal, which had dismissed his appeal from a decision of the Information Commissioner. The Commissioner had refused Mr Stella's request for access to certain documents held by Griffith University. The central issue before the Court of Appeal was whether the Court should grant Mr Stella's application for leave to appeal and, if so, whether it should order the disclosure of the two specific documents in question.

The Court of Appeal found that Mr Stella's application for disclosure was flawed as it sought documents that were subject to non-publication orders made by the QCAT appeal tribunal. Additionally, the Court noted that the documents in question were not pertinent to the legal issues at hand. The Court further clarified that the appeal tribunal's non-publication orders were valid and that Mr Stella's proposed grounds for appeal were either factual or mixed questions of fact and law, which the Court of Appeal lacked jurisdiction to consider.

Ultimately, the Court dismissed Mr Stella's application for leave to appeal and for the disclosure of the documents. The Court also ordered that the respondent's costs of the application would be part of their costs in the appeal. This decision highlights the importance of adhering to tribunal processes and the limitations of the Court of Appeal's jurisdiction in relation to factual disputes and mixed questions of fact and law.

Orders