Wilson v Alexander & Ors

[2004] HCATrans 403

[2004] HCATrans 403

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
  Sydney  No S39 of 2004

B e t w e e n -

PAUL WILSON

Applicant

and

CHARLES ALEXANDER AND OTHERS (IN PARTNERSHIP AS MINTER ELLISON)

Respondents

Application for special leave to appeal

McHUGH J
KIRBY J
HEYDON J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT SYDNEY ON TUESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2004, AT 2.49 PM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

MR P. WILSON appeared in person.

McHUGH J:   There seems to be no appearance for the respondents and a certificate has been given by the Deputy Registrar where she certifies that she has been informed by the solicitor for the respondent, Alexander and Others (In Partnership as Minter Ellison), that the respondent submits to the order of the Court save as to costs.  So you have no opponent, Mr Wilson.  Would you proceed with your submissions, please?

MR WILSON:   Yes, your Honour.  This matter that brings me here, your Honour, is because of a matter that was before Justice Jacobson, your Honour.  It was brought before him for a matter that originated from Justice Emmett, your Honour, from the Australian Copyright Council.  Also, Banki Haddock Fiora got involved, your Honour, in their own way and it boils down to, your Honours, that they pinched the subject matter.  It was worth it to them.

McHUGH J:   I understand, Mr Wilson, that is the background, but this is a special leave application and what you have to show is that in refusing you leave to appeal the Full Court of the Federal Court has committed some error that would warrant this Court in granting special leave to appeal.  Now, that is what you have to show.

MR WILSON:   Your Honours, to show that you have got to look at exhibit A at 13 and exhibit U – exhibit A from Justice Emmett and exhibit U from Justice Jacobson, your Honour.  They were exhibits handed up to the pertinent judges, your Honour, and both exhibits changed whilst they were in the custody of the courts, your Honour.  One was changed by – they were both changed and substituted, your Honour.  Justice Emmett in his summing up against the Copyright Council, your Honour, in his judgment he said that out of the works – he picked out two subject matters, your Honour.

McHUGH J:   But, Mr Wilson, you are seeking to deal with the merits and you are now in a very technical area.  The Full Court has a discretion as to whether they grant leave to appeal.  You have to show that they erred in the exercise of their discretion.  Now, their reasons are set out at page 29 of the application book and you have to show that ‑ ‑ ‑

MR WILSON:   This is Justice Jacobson, your Honour.

McHUGH J:   No, no, this is the Full Court.  Your application is from the Full Court.  What you have to show is that the judgment given on 26 November 2003 is erroneous.

MR WILSON:   Yes, sir, I can do that.

McHUGH J:   Well ‑ ‑ ‑

MR WILSON:   But, your Honour, the point is that there was not only the exhibit A13 and exhibit U.  There is a missing letter dated 21/9/2000 to ‑ ‑ ‑

McHUGH J:   But, Mr Wilson, you are not grappling with what I am putting to you.  If you have your book there, look at page 29, line 25.  Now, they are the reasons that are given by the Full Court of the Federal Court.

MR WILSON:   Yes, sir.

McHUGH J:   Now, you have to demonstrate not only that there is some error there but it is such an important error of law this Court should grant special leave to appeal.  As you probably appreciate, we can only hear about 50 or 60 cases a year out of all the hundreds ‑ ‑ ‑

MR WILSON:   I can understand that, but the answers that I have put to the justices, I put them in there, your Honour, and to pick out one significant one, your Honour, if you look at page 39, your Honour, it says:

The Full Court of Appeal, is in error when it does say plural, that I questioned court employees, as the only witness was a untruthful court employee, Peter Wilson –

He was the only witness that I got to question that day and ‑ ‑ ‑

McHUGH J:   But where does the Full Court say that?

MR WILSON:   What page did you say that Justice ‑ ‑ ‑

McHUGH J:   Page 29 was where they give their reasons.  See they give two reasons.  They say, first of all, in their opinion you had no prospect of success on an appeal and, secondly, that there was no explanation for the delay in filing your notice of appeal.

MR WILSON:   Section 57 of the Legal Aid Act, your Honour.  At that time, your Honour, since August 2002, the Legal Aid had my material and at that time if your Honour – there is a letter there from the Law Society at that date that I was before Justice Jacobson they had the only other copy I had and I was surprised, your Honour, that I thought they were both going to turn up.  The Law Society gave me a letter saying that my area was of professional negligence, your Honour, and ‑ ‑ ‑

McHUGH J:   Well, Justice Jacobson erred when he said that section 57 did not apply, but nevertheless he did take into account the various factors to which section 57 requires to be taken into account.

MR WILSON:   Yes, sir, and I was surprised and that is one of the stipulations are on section 57, that I was surprised.

KIRBY J:   Well, you won that point.

MR WILSON:   Legal Aid would not give me my paperwork back.  I had asked Legal Aid to turn up that day and I thought they were.  I had asked the Law Society to turn up that day and I thought they were because they had my only materials, your Honour.  Not only that, your Honour, the impropriety of Justice Jacobson during the hearing up to that time was something that I pointed out to the justice himself.  I asked him to stand himself down because he was (a) biased, there was a conflict of interest, there was a conflict of interest between Emmett and the docket of Emmett and Jacobson.

McHUGH J:   But, Mr Wilson, even if these points were good points – and I am not saying one way or the other – the fact is they just do not seem important enough for this Court to be granting special leave to appeal.  They are important to you, but we have to look at it from the point of view of the nation.

MR WILSON:   Well, your Honour, you look at it this way, your Honour.  I am an unrepresented person (a) number one, and I was unrepresented during the trials.  The law has taken about 800 years to evolve, your Honour, and as an unrepresented person I have come before the judicial system and I have not found it to be fair and proper.  The problem is, your Honour, the subject matter is the reason that brought me here.  Your Honour says that it is the substantive parts of it, your Honour.  I am here because of the subject matter.  It was pinched off me.  If that is not important enough – and it was pinched off me by officers of the court, your Honour, who have had malfeasance in public office, your Honour, that they have acted without ‑ ‑ ‑

KIRBY J:   It all seems a bit of a storm in a teacup, though.

MR WILSON:   No, it is not, your Honour.  You were the Honour on the Bench when I came before the High Court the last time.

KIRBY J:   Justice Gaudron.

MR WILSON:   Well, when I came before you, your Honour, there was a person here, he was sitting in the office – in the Court that day.  I probably got about five minutes.  You interrupted me 20 times and I asked you time after time and time just to let me read what I had on my piece of paper and you would not allow that, your Honour.

KIRBY J:   Well, a lot of people do that.  You see, our purpose is to get clear in our minds what your point is.

MR WILSON:   My point is, your Honour, that there has been professional negligence.  My subject matter was stolen.  It took me over two decades to do.  The people that have taken advantage of me, your Honour, they have abused their power.  There is a tort of collateral purpose of abuse of the process, your Honour, between my court cases.  There is malfeasance in public office, your Honour.  The court did not denounce improper behaviour, your Honour.

McHUGH J:   But, Mr Wilson, the only thing we have to deal with is to say whether or not what appears at page 29 of the application book indicates an error on the part of the Full Court so important that this case should become one of the 50‑odd cases that we grant special leave to appeal out of the tens of thousands of cases that are decided in this country every year.

MR WILSON:   Well, your Honour, as I say to you, if my case does not get up, cases behind me, they are going to – with a weaker case, they are going to have less chance, your Honour.  My case is to get up against the Copyright Council and Minter Ellison, your Honour, are very strong.  The Court itself has the request for inspection form and will not give it to me.  There is a High Court subpoena given to the Copyright Council that they did not deliver on what was in the subpoena.

McHUGH J:   Well, you are obviously very frustrated by all this, but we have our duty under the statute and we have to look at the big picture.  We have to look at the whole course of litigation in this country and we have to deal with cases concerning the powers of government and largely important questions of law that affect tens of thousands of people directly, and this case just does not raise any special leave point, Mr Wilson.

MR WILSON:   Well, your Honour, you know the procedural defects that were in the ‑ ‑ ‑

McHUGH J:   Well, Justice Jacobson certainly erred in holding that section 57 did not apply.

KIRBY J:   The Full Court held that.

McHUGH J:   The Full Court held that in your favour, but they said it did not make any difference to the ultimate result and they would not grant you leave to appeal.  They said, among other things, you are out of time.  You had not complied with the Rules.

MR WILSON:   That is why I had asked for special leave to appeal with the time limit, your Honour.  The day that the section 57 was put on, your Honour, I tried to explain to the judge that I did not have the paperwork, this, that and the other, your Honour, and I told him that he was being improper and he should have stood down.  The court itself, between Justice Jacobson and Justice Emmett, your Honour, they leave that – I put it to his Honour that the court has abused its powers and it has gone beyond what it should have, your Honour, and I believe that the judiciary has an importance of independence, your Honour.

McHUGH J:   Yes, but you have to be able to identify some particular special leave question and your application book does not even do that and here today you have not identified a special leave point.  I know it is difficult for you because you are unrepresented and you have minimum legal training, but there just is not a special leave point involved in the case, Mr Wilson.

MR WILSON:   Your Honour, all the things that I have just said then, I am sure that there is – you know, the malfeasance ‑ ‑ ‑

McHUGH J:   Well, I understand you think that.

MR WILSON:   ‑ ‑ ‑ malfeasance in public office by the justices, your Honour.  Surely that has got to have something to do with it because that is what happened to exhibit 13A and exhibit U.  That is what happened to the missing letter that Justice Emmett sleight of handed and that the Copyright Council disobeyed a High Court subpoena, your Honour.

McHUGH J:   But you keep going back to what lies behind it.  What you have to show is that the Full Court erred when it refused to extend the time for you to file your notice of appeal.  They just said they would not do it and they exercised their discretion.

MR WILSON:   Your Honour, the Full Court said that I had spoken to – I had more witnesses than I did.  The only one that was forced on me that day, because the justice had the – he took me to a bodgie room where the audio tape was not working and turned the tape off on me, your Honour, and the justices said that I had spoken to more than one witness and I had not.

McHUGH J:   Well, there is nothing in their judgment that suggests that.  They set out the primary judge’s reasons.  They themselves do not refer to it.  But that was not the point.  The point is that they said that you had not shown any basis for an extension of time for filing the notice of appeal.

MR WILSON:   The only thing that I gave to the appeals court was the written information I gave them, your Honour, and ‑ ‑ ‑

McHUGH J:   Well, Mr Wilson, you are coming to the end of the line.  I know you will probably disregard this advice of mine, but put this behind you.  Forget about it.

MR WILSON:   I cannot, your Honour.

McHUGH J:   Well, otherwise it just ‑ ‑ ‑

MR WILSON:   I will not, your Honour.  I have not only had my works pinched by the Council, Minter Ellison, Banki Haddock Fiora, your Honour, but the system itself has, your Honour.

McHUGH J:   Well, it will just ruin your life.  You have become obsessed with it.  Forget it.  Get on with your life.

MR WILSON:   Your Honour, I need to take these people back to court for what they did to me.  If I do not take them back to court, it may cause – as I say, there is judicial probity, your Honour, from Jacobson and Emmett, your Honour, and it shows the two – the exhibits that are missing, your Honour, it says that they have got inexcusable behaviour in withholding and failing to produce or to be truthful to the courts because Minter Ellison lied about the request for inspection form that the court holds that will not give it to me that I have asked and I have asked the High Court to have it done to me through a subpoena but that did not work either.  That they are holding the important documents of the Council and Minters and that which the evidencing shows that there is deliberate concealment, your Honour, deliberate concealment of the documents ‑ ‑ ‑

McHUGH J:   We cannot investigate these things.  You see, one of the problems you have, quite apart from anything else, is the findings of fact that have been made against you.  We do not hear evidence in this Court, Mr Wilson.

MR WILSON:   His Honour has never – they never ever spoke about exhibit A13 or exhibit U or the missing letter.  They never spoke about them and they are the things that come down to the judicial propriety of the judicial system, your Honour.

McHUGH J:   Justice Jacobson found that the allegation of tampering with the letter was unjustified.  That was his finding of fact.  Now, that is a finding of fact.

MR WILSON:   When you say the tampering of the letter was unjustified.

McHUGH J:   Well, that is what he said at page 15 of the book.  If you look at page 15, paragraph 61.  At paragraph 60 he referred to exhibit U and then at paragraph 61 he said:

I find that the allegation of “tampering” with the letter is unjustified.

This is page 15.

MR WILSON:   The tampering of the letter was unjustified.

McHUGH J:   That is what his Honour found.

MR WILSON:   Well, I had pointed out to his Honour that the letter – in the transcripts it says that Justice Emmett asked me – he said, “Have you any more exhibits?” and I said, “Yes, this one, your Honour” and I handed it up and it was because of the letter on 2 March on a callover hearing when I first mentioned it to Justice Emmett about the missing letter, he screamed at them.  He really yelled at the counsel sitting behind me because they had not given him the letter, your Honour.  They had not handed it up to him.

McHUGH J:   Once again you are getting back into the background of the case.

MR WILSON:   Well, your Honour, that is on the tape, that the letter is there, that I told it to Justice Emmett, 21/9/2000.  It was to Peter Banki and when I went to court on the 20^th, your Honour, he sleight of handed it.

McHUGH J:   Well, Mr Wilson, I am afraid your time is up.  You have had your 20 minutes.  Thank you for your submissions. 

In this matter, Mr Wilson seeks special leave to appeal against a judgment of the Full Court of the Federal Court.  He has argued his case with great passion, but we are of opinion that the case does not raise any point that would warrant the grant of special leave to appeal.  Accordingly, the application must be dismissed. 

MR WILSON:   Excuse me, your Honour, might I just ask your Honour if I can ask a special favour of the Court, that the Court send me the transcripts of today, please. 

McHUGH J:   Well, it is not a matter for us, it is a matter for ‑ ‑ ‑

MR WILSON:   I am asking your Honour.  Your Honour has the power to do it, obviously.  I am a pensioner, your Honour.  I cannot afford to do it, and I am asking your Honour, because I would like to hear what my argument was. 

McHUGH J:   We cannot order it.  We can make a suggestion, and I will make a suggestion that you get a copy.  It is a matter for the administration, Mr Wilson.  We have no power to order them to do it, but they will have heard what we have said and the high probability is that they will act on it. 

MR WILSON:   Thank you, your Honour.  Might I be excused? 

McHUGH J:   Yes. 

MR WILSON:   Thank you. 

McHUGH J:   Adjourn the Court until 10.15 am on Monday, 25 October in Perth. 

AT 3.13 PM THE MATTER WAS CONCLUDED