Windsor v Health Care Complaints Commission (No 2)

Windsor and Ors v Health Care Complaints Commission (No 2) concerned an application to set aside a judgment of the Court of Appeal of New South Wales. The applicants sought to challenge the intra-curial arrangements of the Court of Appeal, alleging that the Court had failed to address affidavits they had filed. Crucially, the applicants did not appear at the hearing of the original appeal.

The central legal issue before the Court of Appeal was whether the applicants had established grounds to set aside the previous judgment. This required the Court to consider the circumstances under which a judgment, particularly one where the affected parties did not appear at the hearing, could be vacated, and whether the applicants' complaints about the handling of their affidavits constituted a sufficient basis for such an order.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the application. Their Honours reasoned that the applicants had not demonstrated any error in the original appeal proceedings that would warrant setting aside the judgment. The failure of the applicants to appear at the hearing of the appeal was a significant factor, and the Court found no basis to conclude that their affidavits had been improperly disregarded or that the Court's internal procedures had been breached in a manner that invalidated the judgment. Accordingly, the Court ordered that the notice of motion dated 17 June 2020 be dismissed.