[2024] VSCA 38
General information, not legal advice.
Court of Appeal (Vic)
2024-03-19
Tsalamandris J, Beach JA, Niall JA
Original judgment source is linked above.
I refused to grant Mr Huang leave to amend his notice of appeal for the following reasons:
(a) There had been multiple directions hearings and oral applications in this matter.[19] At no stage did Mr Huang indicate that he wanted to rely upon this section of the FOI Act;
(b) At hearing, Mr Huang had not prepared a written version of the proposed amended notice of appeal;
(c) Mr Huang had not given notice to the Council of his proposed amendment prior to the commencement of the hearing; and
(d) The parties (and the Court) were otherwise in a position to hear the application on the day of the hearing.
In view of those factors, and in accordance with the overarching purposes of the CPA, I did not consider it to be in the interests of justice to allow such an amendment, and thus refused Mr Huang's application.[20]
In relation to documents 9-15, Mr Huang asserted that the Council had acted illegally by requiring him to apply for a permit under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act, and in its search of his property.
Mr Huang asserted that in view of these illegal acts, the Council could not assert legal professional privilege over its communication with its lawyers. Mr Huang specifically alleged that:
- After the council consulted with the lawyer firm (Maddocks), they knowingly involve in the fraud or offence, they knew the law and broke the law, and playing with the law, they were doing illegal things in the name of the law and abused their power, they deceived the court to obtain the search warrant through falsification of an investigation report. The Applicant had tried to communicate with the staffs, CEO, internal ombudsman of the council and Vic Ombudsman and Maddocks lawyer to avoid any human errors, they claimed all illegal actions were consulted with lawyers and refused to rectify them. I haven't got a chance to read the contents of Maddocks lawyer's emails, but according to Bruce's email 'there were a number of critical mistakes made by Maddocks during the life of this matter'.
Mr Huang submitted that, at common law, no privilege arises in respect of a communication made for a purpose that is contrary to the public interest. That is, no privilege will arise where the communication is made in furtherance of an illegal or improper purpose, regardless of whether or not the legal adviser knows of that purpose. In addition, Mr Huang sought to rely upon s 125 of Evidence Act 2008 (Vic) (the Evidence Act) and asserted that this section also prevented the Council claiming legal professional privilege over the documents, as he alleged they were made in furtherance of an abuse of legal power.
...
Mr Huang acknowledged that he had not expressly referred to s 125 of the Evidence Act at the VCAT hearing, nor expressly submitted that the Council had waived its legal professional privilege based on common law principles. However, as I understood his submission, Mr Huang contended that the Court should apply this common law principle (and s 125 of the Evidence Act) without it having been articulated by him, as the Court should be concerned with ensuring that laws are followed, and illegal conduct is not enabled or sanctioned by the Court.
In relation to documents 6 and 7, Mr Huang submitted that the Member had erred in law by failing to correctly apply s 33(2A) of the FOI Act and in determining that the documents were exempt.
Mr Huang submitted that the Council had illegally provided his personal information to others and in doing so, had breached Information Privacy Principles 2.1 and 4.1 contained in Schedule 1 of the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic). As I understood Mr Huang's submission, he asserted that there had been a breach of his privacy that, in turn, constituted a waiver by the Council of any privacy privilege it held in respect of others' personal information.
Further, Mr Huang stated that disclosure by the Council of information relating to the personal affairs of his neighbours was reasonable, as his neighbours' names are able to be found in the public domain, including on the Council's website, in the newspaper, in council meeting minutes, and via the search engine Google.
Finally, Mr Huang contended that pursuant to s 33(2A) of the FOI Act, there was no risk of physical danger to the complainants if they were to be identified. Instead, Mr Huang claimed he was a 'victim', and that intervention was required to protect him from harm by the complainants.[21]
Notwithstanding such flagrant accusations, Mr Huang was non-specific in respect of the basis of the alleged illegality or impropriety and failed to establish any facts that supported such allegations.
The Member accepted the evidence of Ms Bugia as to why she sought external legal advice. This was open to him, and there was no basis to infer impropriety from Ms Bugia doing so.
Adopting the language of Viscount Finlay in O'Rourke, I am therefore not satisfied there was sufficient evidence 'to give colour' to Mr Huang's charges. Applying the test articulated by Brennan CJ in Propend yields a similar outcome: there were 'no reasonable grounds for believing' the communications effected by the documents were made for some illegal or improper purpose, contrary to the public interest.
For the sake of completeness, I note that there was no support for Mr Huang's contention that s 125 of the Evidence Act is of relevance to an FOI request, and I consider it unnecessary for me to discuss this further.[24]
Mr Huang failed to set out a ground of appeal in respect of the Member's application of s 33(2A) of the FOI Act. That alone is a basis upon which to dismiss the question of law relating to this section.
Even if Mr Huang had adequately identified this as a ground of appeal, there is nothing before me to support a finding that the Member erred in respect of his consideration of s 33(2A) of the FOI Act. Mr Huang's assertion that he was at risk of harm, as opposed to the complainants, was without foundation. Further, I consider it irrelevant to an appeal on an error of law.
Mr Huang alleged the Council had, without permission, released his personal information and that, doing so constituted a waiver of privacy privilege over documents containing the complainants' personal information. This is without foundation and must be rejected.
Further, even if I had been persuaded that there was an error by the Member in respect of his application of s 33(2A), Mr Huang made no complaint as to the Member's reasoning that s 35(1)(b) also justified the exemption of such documents. The consequence of this is that documents 6 and 7 are exempt, irrespective of any criticism advanced by Mr Huang in respect of the Member's application of s 33(2A).[25]
The application for leave to appeal to this Court
Ground of appeal relating to Question of law 1-2:
Section 125 of the Evidence Act 2008 (VIC) provides that a confidential communication will not be privileged if made or prepared in furtherance of a fraud, offence, an act attracting penalty, or a deliberate abuse of a power conferred by an Australian law.
Common law
At common law, no privilege arises in respect of a communication made for a purpose that is contrary to the public interest; that is, where the communication is made in furtherance of an illegal or improper purpose, whether or not the legal adviser knows of that purpose.
Ground of appeal relating to Question of law 2:
Section 33(2A) of the FOI Act 1982 (VIC) provides that, an agency or Minister, in deciding whether the disclosure of a document under this Act would involve the unreasonable disclosure of information relating to the personal affairs of any person, must take into account, in addition to any other matters, whether the disclosure of the information would, or would be reasonably likely to, endanger the life or physical safety of any person.
33 Document affecting personal privacy
(1) A document is an exempt document if its disclosure under this Act would involve the unreasonable disclosure of information relating to the personal affairs of any person (including a deceased person).
...
(2A) An agency or Minister, in deciding whether the disclosure of a document under this Act would involve the unreasonable disclosure of information relating to the personal affairs of any person, must take into account, in addition to any other matters, whether the disclosure of the information would, or would be reasonably likely to, endanger the life or physical safety of any person.
...
(9) In this section -
'information relating to the personal affairs of any person' includes information -
(a) that identifies any person or discloses their address or location; or
(b) from which any person's identity, address or location can reasonably be determined;
(1) First, the question of whether any failure to disclose documents 6 or 7 would be reasonably likely to endanger the applicant's life or physical safety is a question of fact, not one involving any question of law.
(2) Secondly, there was no evidence led at VCAT that any failure to disclose either documents 6 or 7 would be reasonably likely to endanger the applicant's life or physical safety.
(3) Thirdly, and more importantly, the applicant's submission involves misconstruing s 33(2A) of the FOI Act as a section concerned with the consequences of a failure to disclose information - rather than a section which deals with the consequences of a potential disclosure of information. Specifically, s 33(2A) says nothing about the consequences of any failure to disclose information; nor whether any failure to disclose information would, or would be reasonably likely to, endanger the life or safety of any person.
32 Documents affecting legal proceedings
(1) A document is an exempt document if it is of such a nature that it would be privileged from production in legal proceedings on the ground of legal professional privilege or client legal privilege.
The application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court
The hearing and determination of the application for an extension of time
After considering the terms of the applicant's notice of appeal and his submissions, both oral and written, I understood the applicant's case to be that VCAT erred because the applicant's evidence should have been accepted. This does not identify an error of law by VCAT. Pursuant to r 4.08 of the Rules, the Court may dismiss an application for an extension of time if it is satisfied that the notice of appeal does not identify sufficiently or at all a question of law on which the proposed appeal may be brought. I am satisfied that this is the case with the applicant's notice of appeal.
During the course of the hearing the applicant said that identifying a question of law and grounds of appeal is very complicated. I agree and accept that the task may be even more difficult for a non-lawyer working in a language that is not his first language. In my view, however, the bases for the applicant's notice of appeal were his disagreement with the factual findings of VCAT, rather than errors or questions of law. As such, despite other factors favouring the grant of an extension of time to the applicant, it is my opinion that the appeal itself is so devoid of merit that to grant an extension of time would be futile.
I am satisfied that the issues raised by the applicant in his notice of appeal are not questions of law, and as such even if the applicant had made an application within the statutory 28-day time limit, his application would have been bound to fail. I will order that the applicant's application for an extension of time to file a notice of appeal be dismissed.[33]
The application for leave to appeal to this Court
(a) the applicant's application for leave to appeal from the orders made by Tsalamandris J on 15 December 2022 must be refused; and
(b) the applicant's application for an extension of time within which to file and serve an application for leave to appeal from the orders of Irving AsJ made on 7 October 2022 must be refused.
[1] While evidence suggests that the property is owned by the applicant and his wife, Jin Hui Lu, nothing turns on this as the litigation we are about to describe in relation to the property only involved the applicant.
[2] Huang v Frankston City Council (Review and Regulation) [2021] VCAT 634 ('FOI VCAT Reasons').
[3] Huang v Frankston City Council [2022] VSC 733 ('FOI Appeal Reasons').
[4] Huang v Frankston City Council (Human Rights) [2022] VCAT 24 ('PDP VCAT Reasons').
[5] Huang v Frankston City Council [2022] VSC 595 ('PDP Appeal Reasons').
[6] Contrary to s 118(1) of the Building Act 1993.
[7] Contrary to regulation 703(b) of the Building Interim Regulations 2017.
[8] Contrary to regulation 703(c) of the Building Interim Regulations 2017.
[9] Contrary to s 67 of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008.
[13] Referred to by the Commissioner as documents numbered 32 and 33.
[14] Referred to by the Commissioner as documents numbered 36 and 42.
[15] Frontlink Pty Ltd v Commissioner of State Revenue [2023] VSC 521, [10] (Croft J); Weldemichael v Ha [2023] VSCA 230, [12] (Beach JA).
[19] Such hearings were conducted on 1 September 2021, 15 September 2021, 13 October 2021, 15 December 2021 and 2 March 2022.
[20] FOI Appeal Reasons, [51]-[52].
[21] Ibid [56]-[64] (footnote omitted).
[34] See Huang v Frankston City Council (Costs) (Human Rights) [2022] VCAT 368.
Huang
Frankston City Council [2024] VSCA 38
In proceeding S EAPCI 2023 0010, [2022] VSC 595 (Irving AsJ)
In proceeding S EAPCI 2023 0014, [2022] VSC 733 (Tsalamandris J)