The Legal Practice Board v Boroky, Meredith Kinga Anne

The Legal Practice Board appealed against a decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal which had assessed the appropriateness of a fee imposed on a legal practitioner under section 40 of the Mutual Recognition (Western Australia) Act 1995. The appellant, the Legal Practice Board, challenged the basis upon which the fee was calculated and the subsequent decision to remit the matter back to them to reconsider the appropriateness of the fee. The respondent, Meredith Kinga Anne Boroky, argued that the fee was unreasonably high and not in accordance with the relevant statutory provisions. The primary issue before the court was whether the fee imposed on the respondent was correctly calculated and whether the tribunal was correct in remitting the matter back to the appellant for reconsideration.

The court found that the tribunal had erred in its assessment of the basis for calculating the fee. The tribunal had placed reliance on the wrong legislative provision, leading to an incorrect calculation of the fee. The court held that the tribunal should have referred to section 40 of the Mutual Recognition (Western Australia) Act 1995, which explicitly outlines the method for calculating the fee. Furthermore, the court determined that the tribunal had incorrectly exercised its discretion by remitting the matter back to the appellant for reconsideration of the appropriateness of the fee. Instead, the court found that the matter should be remitted to the appellant to reconsider the calculation of the fee based on the correct statutory provision.

Accordingly, the appeal was allowed in part, and the tribunal's decision regarding the calculation of the fee was set aside. The matter was remitted back to the appellant to correctly calculate the fee in accordance with the provisions of section 40 of the Mutual Recognition (Western Australia) Act 1995. The court did not make any order as to costs, leaving the matter of costs to be determined by the parties involved.