Dobbie v Commissioner of Victims Rights

Judgment

1. The plaintiff applies by a notice of motion, filed 29 January 2019, for an order in accordance with Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW) r 36.5 that the defendant comply with order 2 made by Campbell J in the proceedings on 20 December 2018.
2. The principal proceedings sought judicial review of a reassessment by the defendant of an application for victims compensation under the Victims Support and Rehabilitation Act 1996 (NSW). The summons sought an order in the nature a certiorari and an order that the reassessment application, is remitted back to the Defendant to be decided according to law by a different assessor.
3. The events in respect of which the assessment was made took place a long time ago. The application for compensation was made in October 2012. While the application was pending the Victims Support and Rehabilitation Act was repealed and replaced with the Victims Rights and Support Act 2013 (NSW). By cl 5 of Sch 2 to the new Act the plaintiff's application was treated as an application under the new Act.
4. The proceedings were heard in the first half of 2018 with the orders being made on 20 December 2018. The first two orders made by Campbell J were these: 1. By order in the nature of a certiorari, set aside the reassessment review decision of the Commissioner of Victims' Rights dated 5 December 2017. 2. Remit the matter to the Commissioner of Victims Rights for redetermination according to law. (Dobbie v Commissioner of Victims Rights [2018] NSWSC 1989)
5. Subsequent to the making of the orders there was email correspondence between the solicitors acting for the plaintiff and the solicitor for the defendant with those acting for the plaintiff endeavouring to obtain an early hearing date for the reassessment by the Commissioner. By an unfortunate combination of events, such a reassessment date was not appointed before the present motion was filed.
6. The unfortunate events were, first, that the judgment was delivered on 20 December right at the end of term with the entailing difficulties for legal advisors of the parties. The second matter associated with that time of year was that the office of the defendant was closed from 21 December 2018 until 2 January 2019, and the office only operated on skeleton staff until 7 January. The solicitor for the defendant, who was principally involved in the matter, was also on leave during this time, and two days after returning to work on 7 January broke one of his toes, resulting in his being absent from work after surgery until 29 January. Up until that time the plaintiff had been endeavouring to find out what was happening in terms of the reassessment, noting at the same time that the time for filing a Notice of Intention to Appeal or a Summons seeking leave to appeal had passed.