Tectran Corporation Pty Limited & Ors v Raybos Australia Pty Limited & Ors; Carson & Ors v Raybos Australia Pty Limited

The matters before the High Court of Australia involved applications for special leave to appeal by Tectran Corporation Pty Limited and others, and by William Robert Dill Stevenson and others, against Raybos Australia Pty Limited and others. The core of the dispute concerned allegations of apprehended bias, leading to arguments for the disqualification of a judicial officer.

The legal issues before the Court revolved around the appropriate test for determining whether a judge should recuse themselves from hearing a case due to a reasonable apprehension of bias. Specifically, the Court was asked to consider the formulation of this test as established in Australian jurisprudence, particularly in light of the High Court's own decision in *Reg v Watson*, and to compare it with the test applied in England, as articulated in cases such as *Metropolitan Properties Co v Lannon* and *Reg v Crown Court at Bristol*.

The applicants argued that Australian courts had applied various "glosses" to the test laid down in *Reg v Watson*, leading to a greater volume of litigation on the issue compared to England. They contended that the test in England, focusing on a "real likelihood of bias" or the perspective of a "reasonable and fair-minded person sitting in court and knowing all the relevant facts," was a more straightforward and less litigious approach. The applicants suggested that the decisions below had applied these glosses, leading to an outcome that was not in accordance with the principle that a judge should not sit if there is a reasonable apprehension of prejudice.