WSL
[2010] QCAT 366
•3 August 2010
| CITATION: | WSL [2010] QCAT 366 |
| PARTIES: | WSL (Applicant) |
| v | |
| Department of Communities (Respondent) |
| APPLICATION NUMBER: | CML064-10 |
| MATTER TYPE: | Childrens matters |
| HEARING DATES: | On the papers |
| HEARD AT: | Brisbane |
| DECISION OF: | Justice Alan Wilson, President |
| DELIVERED ON: | 3 August 2010 |
| DELIVERED AT: | Brisbane |
ORDERS MADE: | Dismiss the applicant’s review application under s 99M of the Child Protection Act 1999 |
| CATCHWORDS : | CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE MATTERS – REVIEW OF REVIEWABLE DECISION – where applicant seeks to review the decision of the Chief Executive – where Children’s Court in Townsville granted temporary custody of child to the Chief Executive – where court seized of same matter as QCAT, and determined the matter – meaning and effect of Child Protection Act 1999, s 99M Child Protection Act 1999, ss 59, 67, 87(2), 99M Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009, s 18(1) |
REASONS FOR DECISION
These proceedings concern a child, WLJ, born January 2005. The applicant WSL is her mother.
Section 18(1) of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (QCAT Act) gives the Tribunal jurisdiction to review a reviewable decision, on an application under the QCAT Act. It appears from WSL’s voluminous material that she is seeking that QCAT review a decision made by the Department’s Chief Executive in the course of its involvement in the child’s affairs under the Child Protection Act 1999 (CP Act).
WSL’s application does not specifically identify the kind or nature of the Chief Executive’s ‘reviewable decisions’ (set out in Schedule 2 of the CP Act) she seeks to have reviewed, but her material suggests her primary grievance concerns a decision by the Children’s Court to grant temporary custody of WJL to the Chief Executive. It also appears that she may be aggrieved by a decision under s 87(2) of the CP Act regarding contact between her, and WJL.
On 19 August 2009 the Townsville Children’s Court granted temporary custody of WJL to the Chief Executive. On 7 April 2010 that court made an interim child protection order under s 67 of the CP Act which continued interim custody in the hands of the Chief Executive and denied WSL and BJ contact with the child, except with the approval of a departmental officer.
On 18 May 2010, pursuant to an order from the Children’s Court, a conference was held between all parties including the applicant and the respondent which led to the development of a case plan concerning the child and the making, on 19 May 2010, of a final child protection order.
Under s 59 of the CP Act the Children’s Court must be satisfied, before it makes such an order, that there is a case plan for the child which is appropriate for meeting its assessed protection and care needs. The case plan, the Department now submits, directly touches the question of contact between WSL and WJL and that issue has now been finally adjudicated.
Section 99M of the CP Act addresses the circumstance which, the Department says, has arisen here – that is, that there is a review application before QCAT and some or all of the matters to which the reviewable decision relates are also before a court. Under s 99M(2) the President of QCAT must suspend its review if the President considers that the court’s decision about the matters would effectively decide the same issues to be decided by the Tribunal, and the matters would be dealt with quickly by the court. At an earlier date I was persuaded by the Department that it was appropriate to suspend the review, and an order to that effect was made on 7 June 2010.
Under s 99M(3) if the President acts under subs (2), and the court then decides the matters, and the decision effectively decides the issues before QCAT, then the President must dismiss the review application.
The Department gave notice of an application under s 99M(3) after the order of the Children’s Court in late May. By a QCAT order of 7 June 2010 it was directed that the application would be dealt with on the papers, by written submissions. WSL was given notice of that order and asked to serve her submissions by 21 June. She did so, a little late, in the form of a letter received by QCAT on 19 July 2010.
The letter is a long one but, near its conclusion, WSL asked QCAT to review the terms of any contact visits between the child and BJ so that they are supervised by Departmental officers; to return custody of the child back to her, to live with her and her current partner; and for the prosecution of a complaint against a named Departmental safety officer.
On any view these complaints relate to the terms of the final child protection order. Nothing in the file indicates or suggests that WSL has sought to appeal that order, although there is what appears to be a standard letter from the Department to her in respect of one of the earlier, interim orders, explaining her right to appeal under the CP Act and that she must do so within 28 days of the order being made.
In any event it is inescapable that the Departmental decisions which prompted WSL’s initial review application now fall plainly within the circumstances described in s 99M and, in particular, that the issues arising from the decision which she sought to have reviewed have effectively been decided by a court.
WSL’s review application must, in the circumstances, be dismissed.
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