Re Dai

In the Supreme Court of New Zealand, Sandy Zhujun Dai, the applicant, filed an application for recall of the Court's decision in Dai v Professional Conduct Committee of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants, alongside an application for a fee waiver. The Registrar declined the fee waiver, prompting Ms Dai to apply for a review of this decision under section 160 of the Senior Courts Act 2016. This application, along with another to review the Registrar's decision to refuse to allow the second application for recall to proceed pending this review, was referred to Ellen France J for decision.

The legal issues before the court were whether the applicant's proposed appeal concerns a matter of genuine public interest, warranting a waiver of the filing fee, and whether the second application for recall should proceed pending the review. The court had to determine if the case involved a question of law of significant interest to the public or a substantial section of the public, as required by regulation 5(2)(b) of the Supreme Court Fees Regulations 2003.

Ellen France J found that the applicant's case did not involve a matter of genuine public interest, as the resolution of the second application for recall and the proposed appeal would turn on the specific facts of this case. The court concluded that no question of law or of genuine public interest arose, and the context remained one in which Ms Dai had not resolved the procedural defects in her claim. Therefore, the application for review of the decision to decline the fee waiver was dismissed, and so was the application for review of the decision to refuse to allow the second application for recall to proceed pending this review.