Murray v Pinder[2020] QSC 385

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

HIS HONOUR:   This is an application for judicial review pursuant to the Judicial Review Act 1991.  It relates to events in the Magistrates Court below in respect of certain relatively minor criminal charges which the applicant is facing.  It arises out of, essentially logistical mentions of the matter below before, firstly, Magistrate Browne and subsequently Magistrate Pinder. 

The applicant’s approach to the charges below seems to focus upon an argument about how he is named, his inability to defend himself when wrongly named and the alleged absence of jurisdiction over his so called juristic person. 

Arguments advanced by self-represented persons about their legal identities are fashionable of late.  I note the pursuit of one such argument was recently described in the Court of Appeal in Bradley v The Crown [2020] QCA 252 as an abuse of the court’s process.  Part of that argument in that case was described by the President of the Court of Appeal as “gobbledygook”, such is the absence of legitimate legal foundation for some of the theories being pushed in this type of argument lately.  It is difficult to tell whether such arguments are pursued in misconceived good faith or are a quite deliberate distraction from the orderly disposition of cases according to law. 

I made plain to the applicant when this matter first came before me that if his application really boiled down to a complaint connected with how he was named in documents served on him the application would be dismissed as frivolous and vexatious.  I understood him to indicate that his application had greater substance. 

Because of his application’s incoherence at first and the failure to clearly identify what orders were sought to be reviewed, and in circumstances where the respondent was prepared to advance matters by procuring a transcript of what occurred below, I took the cautious approach of allowing an adjournment.  I directed Mr Murray to file some particulars of the decision to be reviewed.  He has since attempted to do so, though it did not particularly clarify matters to a much greater extent.  There was another adjournment because of delays in the transcript’s provision. 

The transcript has now been procured and placed in evidence.  I have read it.  There is nothing in the transcript of what occurred before Magistrate Browne on the 9^th of July 2020, or Magistrate Pinder on the 26^th of August 2020, or in the Magistrates Court’s record of orders made on those occasions, to the extent that evidence had been placed before me about them, which has been identified as capable of founding a proper vehicle for statutory review. 

To the extent any potential error has been identified, it seems to be Magistrate Browne and Magistrate Pinder expressed a different view about whether the applicant was at large or on bail.  It may be there was an error in how the court file note was recorded about that but it is not, in any event, an issue apt to judicial review, nor indeed does the applicant suggest it is.  It remains an issue the applicant can ventilate below.

Section 48 Judicial Review Act permits the court to dismiss an application if it is inappropriate to continue or frivolous or vexatious.  It has now emerged that the application meets all of those descriptions. 

Further, s 12 Judicial Review Act confers upon the court the discretion to dismiss an application where adequate provision is made by a law, other than under the Judicial Review Act, by which an applicant is entitled to see a review of the matter.  Many judicial reviews of decisions of the Magistrates Court fail because there is available a right of appeal to the District Court.  Broadly speaking, of course, that appeal right only falls to be exercised after the Magistrates Court proceeding is finalised.  Interlocutory applications in the meantime before superior courts, whether pursuant to the Judicial Review Act or by other applications to superior courts, are entertained sparingly.  The applicant’s arguments are said by him to be a basis upon which he will seek to avoid liability at trial.  It is difficult to perceive any proper legal basis upon which they may succeed.  In any event, however misconceived they may be, his arguments can be ventilated should he seek to do so in the Magistrates Court at his trial.  That provides a further reason why the application ought to be dismissed. 

Costs should follow the event.  The respondent generously only seeks costs on the standard basis. 

My orders are:

1. Application dismissed.
2. The applicant will pay the respondents’ costs to be assessed on the standard basis.