Croker v Deputy Registrar of the High Court

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT BEAUMONT J: 1 Before the Court is a motion to vary or discharge an order made by me on 4 October 2002, where I dismissed, in the absence of the applicant, an application for leave to appeal, but suspended the operation of that dismissal up to and including 31 October 2002, reserving liberty to the applicant to apply to vary or discharge the order of dismissal. The early history of the matter of the application for leave to appeal is described in my reasons dated 10 September 2002 (see [2002] FCA 1117) and the subsequent history appears in my reasons dated 4 October 2002 (see [2002] FCA 1260), neither of which need be repeated here. 2 Mr Croker has appeared before me today and has urged upon me substantially the same arguments as previously put by him. He is studying law and appears to appreciate the issues on the application for leave to appeal. He has informed me that in the principal proceedings, in which he was seeking the judicial review of a decision of the Deputy Registrar of the High Court to refuse an extension of time, he will not be relying upon any documentation that was actually before the Deputy Registrar at the time of the decision in question. 3 However, Mr Croker says that he wishes to refer to other documentation, around 75 to 100 pages in all, which he says will go to two questions in the principal proceedings. The first is that this material will indicate that there has been a practice adopted in the High Court Registry which contradicts the decision taken by the Deputy Registrar in his case. The second area in respect of which he says he needs to refer to the documentation now in question goes, he submits, to an argument that the Deputy Registrar was biased. Significantly, in my view, Mr Croker has made no effort on the several occasions the matter has now been before me to seek to establish that either of these two arguments have any real prospects of success. 4 In any event, as I have earlier said, it seems to me any activation of the appellant process at this stage of the principal proceedings would be premature. It is clear that the trial Judge has been actively engaged in the management of the litigation in all its dimensions, including the present question of putting in place machinery to enable the applicant to use the documentation he seeks to rely upon at the final hearing of the principal proceedings. 5 On any view, in my opinion, any question of appeal is, at the least, premature at this stage. For those reasons I refuse the motion to vary or discharge my order dated 4 October 2002. I certify that the preceding five (5) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment herein of the Honourable Justice Beaumont.