Mohareb v Manly Local Court

Who should be at the Bar table? Notice of motion proposed orders 3a and 3b

1. Because it was a threshold question about which evidence and submissions I should receive at the hearing, it was necessary for me to resolve this part of the motion before I resolved the substantive applications in the amended summons.
2. As can be seen from the Hearing Transcript at page 20 line 46 (hereafter HT 20.46), I decided that preliminary question contrary to the submission of the applicant. I considered it inconceivable, indeed bordering on the absurd, to suggest that an application for prerogative relief arising from criminal proceedings, and in the alternative an interlocutory appeal in a criminal matter, could be determined without the informant in those criminal proceedings having a right to be heard about the appropriateness of any such relief. The fact that the underlying dispute related to the issuing of subpoenas (which may, in some circumstances, be issued ex parte) was of little weight to my mind, especially since, according to the transcript, the informant was indeed represented at the review of the refusal of the Local Court Registrar before the Magistrate.
3. In short, and without seeking here or at any stage of this judgment to be personally critical of a self-represented litigant, the submission of the applicant that the informant in the underlying criminal prosecution should not be heard in the proceedings in this Court was, with respect, ill-conceived. The Registrar was quite correct to reject it.
4. Proposed orders 3a and 3b in the notice of motion were dismissed by me on that simple basis, and do not require further discussion.
5. As discussed, I shall deal with other, non-liminal aspects of the notice of motion a little later.

Error by Magistrate in refusing subpoenas? Amended summons proposed orders 1 to 5

1. It is convenient now to discuss the merits of the amended summons itself. In order to do so, I must first sketch briefly what happened before the Magistrate.

Written submissions of applicant to Magistrate

1. The written material placed before the Local Court Registrar and thereafter the Magistrate was voluminous, prolix, and discursive. Much of it was irrelevant to the issues that arise when a subpoena to produce documents is sought to be issued. The most significant parts of the written material before the Magistrate can be summarised as follows. 1. A lengthy background was provided regarding the applicant's upbringing, living situation, an attempted murder alleged to have been committed against him, and alleged instances of abuse committed against him by his own mother. 2. The applicant argued that his mother's alleged narcissistic behaviour often led to loud arguments in the home, which in turn caused the police to be called to investigate multiple times. On each of the previous occasions, the police had concluded that the incidents were mere "family arguments" and did not conclude that the applicant's mother had been intimidated or fearful for her physical or mental safety. 3. Each of the mentioned incidents would allegedly cause the applicant's mother to become progressively more combatant and hostile, up until the incident that is the subject of the charges. 4. The allegation in one of the charges against the applicant that he had intimidated the victim "with the intention of causing the said victim to fear physical or mental harm", it was submitted, could be contradicted by the evidence in the affidavit. 5. In support of those assertions, the subpoenas to produce documents, one of them pertaining to police interactions with his mother, and the other pertaining to an alleged admission of her to a psychiatric hospital some years ago, were soundly based.
2. It can be seen immediately from the above summary that some of what the applicant wrote was legally ill-founded. For example, as I have said he asserted that there had been many occasions on which the police had been called to the home, albeit not by his mother. Each time, it was written, the police had not laid charges, and assessed events as having been "family arguments". The point was made that the police had never come to the view that the mother of the applicant had been herself intimidated, or feared for her safety.
3. Regrettably, however, this submission, presumably designed to show a legitimate forensic purpose for a subpoena designed to show an admission by the mother of the applicant to a psychiatric hospital, and another subpoena designed to show the previous attendances by police, misunderstood that the offence of intimidation is objective, not subjective, in the sense that it does not include a mental element on the part of an alleged victim of actually having been personally intimidated.
4. In similar vein, the original application to the Registrar of the Local Court included an academic paper entitled "Perception of Female Narcissism in Intimate Partner Violence". But the provision of such a document was an appropriate way to seek to persuade neither a Registrar of the Local Court nor a Magistrate to issue a subpoena.

Oral submissions to Magistrate

1. The transcript of the hearing before the Magistrate (hereafter MHT) shows the following.
2. The applicant originally misunderstood the nature of the proceeding, in that he approached it on the basis that it was a matter of him showing error by the Registrar, rather than the Magistrate deciding the matter afresh (MHT 2.41).
3. With regard to the subpoena to the police, the applicant submitted that the purpose of the subpoena was to show that the intimidation offence was "neither intended nor did it cause the victim to be intimidated or to fear physical and mental harm" (MHT 3.14). But as I have explained, the latter asserted legitimate forensic purpose was a misunderstanding of the offence-creating provision, s 13(1)-(4) of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW).
4. The Magistrate made it clear that she would not provide the applicant with legal advice, but would "absolutely" provide reasons for her determination (MHT 3.30 ff).
5. At MHT 4.21, the applicant submitted that an outcome could be that he could be denied access to the documents produced on subpoena, but they could even so be "presented to court". But that was a regrettable misunderstanding of the fact that a subpoena to produce documents, if answered, causes the documents to be provided to the issuing party; it certainly does not mean that the subpoenaed documents are necessarily admitted into evidence. In other words, the submission of the applicant was ill-conceived to the extent of being around the wrong way.
6. Later, at MHT 6.24 ff, the Magistrate explained to the applicant the misunderstanding that he had possessed with regard to the elements of the offence of intimidation.
7. Later again, at MHT 7.10, the applicant spoke of the material proposed to be subpoenaed from the police as serving to show "that there were circumstances of duress". I interpolate that duress is a particular "defence" in criminal law, with reasonably strict parameters, as shown by the very recent decision of the High Court in The King v Anna Rowan - A Pseudonym [2024] HCA 9. I shall discuss later in this judgment fundamental differences between that legal doctrine, and the doctrines of self-defence and provocation.
8. Thereafter, the applicant explained that he was seeking "the assistance of the Court" in order to have his mother accept that she needed some sort of psychological help. He also denied, seemingly, that the litigation under discussion was criminal in nature. But both of those submissions were ill-founded, in the context of an application for the issuance of subpoenas to produce in the context of a criminal prosecution (MHT 7.14 ff).

Judgment of Magistrate about both subpoenas

1. The Magistrate turned immediately to her ex tempore judgment regarding both proposed subpoenas. It is noteworthy that applicant saw fit to interrupt her Honour on a number of occasions (MHT 8 ff).
2. In short: the Magistrate stated the nature of the proceedings, namely a review of the refusal by the Registrar to issue the two subpoenas; summarised the prosecution case, including the alleged admission by the applicant that he "did break a dinner plate because [he] was venting [his] anger"; noted that, technically speaking, the subpoena to the police was incorrectly addressed, "but that can be rectified"; found that the temporal reach of the subpoena of over three years was "pretty broad"; noted that the subpoena sought letters written by the mother of the applicant complaining about neighbours; noted that, in contrast, in question here was an interaction between the applicant and his mother; expressed the view that subsequent events would be irrelevant and inadmissible; stated that, if any of this material were to be relied upon to attack the credibility of the applicant's mother, it would need to undermine substantially her credit (see s 103 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW); remarked that alleged complaints about neighbours by the mother may or may not pass such a test; and finally, expressed the view with regard to the first item on the proposed subpoena, that it was too broad and possessed no legitimate forensic purpose.
3. The Magistrate therefore ruled that the application was "set aside".
4. It is noteworthy that her Honour said that the applicant could not subpoena the police "in that form".
5. Turning to the subpoena to the psychiatric hospital, it was again noted that it was incorrectly addressed, though it was said that there is "a proper form that needs to be done", and her Honour went on to explain that that would be by addressing another entity. It was noted that what was sought was material about a purported psychiatric condition of the applicant's mother, which was said to be "fairly confidential material". It was noted that the documents captured by the subpoena went back as far as 2013; that the affidavits were verbose; that much of them was irrelevant; that parts of them were incoherent; and that articles were attached that had "no particular relevance".
6. The ultimate determination was that the subpoena was too broad, and that no legitimate forensic purpose was identified. The formal ruling was that that subpoena was also "set aside".
7. Thereafter, it is noteworthy that the Magistrate immediately suggested that the applicant obtain legal advice, "because there may well be some form of subpoena that may well meet your purposes, but it needs to be properly drafted, so that it is not so broad as to be oppressive in nature": MHT 10.09.
8. I turn now to the submissions of the applicant in support of the amended summons impugning that judgment and those orders.

Written submissions in this Court

1. In written submissions, it was said that Magistrate set aside subpoenas before those subpoenas had actually been filed and served. The applicant noted that such an order was "contrary to the correct procedure", "senseless & irrational", and "corroborative of the learned Magistrate having lost all objectivity" (written submissions at page 63; hereafter WS 63.)
2. The Magistrate's assertion that much of the applicant's affidavit and annexed material was "not relevant" to whether the subpoenas should be made was, the applicant submitted, false. It was said that the Magistrate knew, or ought to have known, from the material in the affidavit that the alleged victim's behaviour was "consistent with that of persons with narcissistic personality disorder". On his case, this was material clearly relevant to the applicant's defence.
3. The applicant argued the use of the word "incoherent" in the judgment was belittling, denigrating, humiliating, and insulting.
4. Regarding the asserted finding that each subpoena was too broad and lacked a legitimate forensic purpose, the applicant noted that the subpoena to the psychiatric hospital related only to a single incident, and a single individual, his mother. The legitimate forensic purpose of that subpoena was said to be documentation of the fact that the alleged victim has a narcissistic personality disorder.
5. Regarding the procedure adopted by the Magistrate, and her manner generally, the applicant submitted the following: 1. The Magistrate, very early on in proceedings, allegedly before knowing anything about the matter, stated that one of the proposed subpoenaed items was "not going to be relevant necessarily". 2. The Magistrate asserted that her review was to be a merits-based review, whereas the applicant asserted before me that it should be a "judicial review". The applicant also submitted that the Magistrate knowingly decided to proceed with a merits-based review in order for her Honour to impose a pre-determined decision and prevent the applicant from issuing the subpoenas. 3. It was submitted that the Magistrate adopted a biased and hostile tone, singling out the applicant as a self-represented litigant (asserted examples from transcript of hearing in Local Court at WS 68). 4. The Magistrate inappropriately refused to assist the applicant regarding the definition of the statutory offence of intimidation, and told him instead to seek legal advice.

Oral submissions to me

1. The oral submissions of the applicant in support of the amended summons commence substantively at HT 25. They may be summarised as follows.
2. The applicant submitted that niceties about the addressees of the subpoenas should not have stood in the way of their issuance.
3. He explained that "the behaviour that I was responding to and the material that I was seeking to subpoena" was to do with psychological problems experienced by his mother: HT 28-29.
4. He explained that the incident in which it was alleged he behaved criminally was not in fact isolated, but part of ongoing conduct on the part of his mother.
5. He submitted that an issue at the ultimate Local Court hearing of the charges, and an issue said to underpin the legitimate forensic purpose of the subpoenas, was the "defence" of self-defence on his part: at HT 29.19 ff.
6. In response to an enquiry by me, he submitted that the conduct of his mother would constitute at least "attenuating [scil. extenuating] circumstances", and that when he had spoken of "duress" to the Magistrate, he had been speaking generally of the circumstances that led him to break or throw a plate: HT 29.32 ff.
7. He went on to speak of having been a person who had been resisting "coercive control" on the part of his mother.
8. Later, he seemed to move away, though perhaps not completely, from the ill-founded focus upon the state of mind of his mother for the purposes of the offence of intimidation.
9. He submitted that the tone of the Magistrate was of anger and outrage: HT 37.11.
10. He placed emphasis on the judgment in Wentworth v Rogers (No 5) (1986) 6 NSWLR 534 with regard to due reticence in summary termination of proceedings; I interpolate that that was a misunderstanding on his part.
11. He submitted that the Magistrate had made an error in ordering that the subpoenas be "set aside", because at that stage they were merely proposed.
12. He asserted that it was not his mother who had called the police on many previous occasions, but rather neighbours.
13. Although he could not state the date of the alleged admission of his mother to a psychiatric hospital whilst on his feet, nor provide a reference to that date in the affidavit material placed before the Magistrate, he submitted that there was just the one incident, with the result that the subpoena was not too broad: HT 42.15 ff.
14. Later, he handed up with my permission an article about the approach of judicial officers to self-represented litigants.
15. As for the proposed subpoena to an emanation of the police, he submitted that as the recipient they had expressed contentment with it. He also submitted that the event in question could not be said to be an isolated incident; quite the contrary.
16. In response to my enquiry as to how the asserted conduct of his mother on other occasions possessed a legitimate forensic purpose with regard to "establishment" of duress, the "defence" to which he had referred at first instance, the applicant provided a discursive answer that commenced at HT 49.
17. He denied that either subpoena constituted a fishing expedition.
18. Finally, he submitted that the rules of the Local Court that require a self-represented litigant to satisfy a Registrar or Magistrate that the subpoena should be issued, in contrast to a lawyer, who bears no such requirement, discriminates inappropriately against such persons.

Submissions of second respondent

1. As I have explained above, only the second respondent made submissions about the substantive questions raised by the amended summons.
2. In written submissions, it was conceded that the Magistrate had made an error with regard to the subpoena to the police. It was said that the error was treating the question of admissibility of any documents produced as determinative of the question of whether the subpoena should issue.
3. It was also said that the reference to the test for the admissibility of credibility evidence was also "arguably in error".
4. Even so, it was said that, due to a formalistic error in the addressees, the subpoenas in the form under discussion should not have been issued, with the result that the relief sought in the amended summons should not be granted.
5. Having said that, the second respondent, seemingly on behalf of the proposed recipient of the subpoena that is an emanation of the New South Wales Police, consented at the least to that subpoena being issued, albeit in different terms.
6. Orally, it was confirmed that, although it was conceded that there had been an error made by the Magistrate about the subpoena to police, even so her Honour was not ultimately in error, because of the issue about the addressee.
7. As for the subpoena proposed to be addressed to the hospital, a concession was not clearly made by the second respondent regarding any error on the part of the Magistrate.

Determination of amended summons

1. Contrary to the partial concession of the solicitor for the second respondent, I do not accept that any error is established by the applicant in the refusal of the Magistrate to issue either subpoena. I say that for the following reasons.
2. First, regarding the partial concession, I do not read the judgment of the Magistrate as approaching admissibility as determinative. That would have been, as the concession accepts, an error, as it is well known that an issuing party can have a legitimate forensic purpose in seeking inadmissible documents on subpoena, because they may lead to other enquiries that bear fruit in the form of admissible evidence. But my reading of the judgment is that her Honour was merely referring to the question of admissibility as a factor in determining a legitimate forensic purpose, not the determining factor. And the former approach, in my opinion, is legally correct.
3. The same analysis applies, in my opinion, to the reference by the Magistrate to the test for the admission of credibility evidence. Read in context, I do not believe it was given inappropriate, prohibitive weight.
4. Relatedly, and more generally, any contentment on the part of the police (or indeed the hospital) with either subpoena is not to the point. My task is to determine whether I perceive legal error in the reasons or orders of the Magistrate. Patently, that is a very different question from whether the proposed recipient of a subpoena is content with it.
5. To express my approach another way: a subpoena is a command from a court. Unless it is appropriate, the court should not issue it. And it is the court that is the judge of that, not the proposed recipient. Furthermore, of course, it is I who am the judge of whether prerogative relief or an interlocutory appeal based on legal error should be granted.
6. Secondly, it seemed to be implicitly conceded by the applicant that the subpoenas may well have been wrongly addressed. But as I said at the hearing, I do not propose to determine this application on such a matter. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the Magistrate herself proffered assistance in that regard.
7. Thirdly, it is important to appreciate the materials with which the Magistrate was confronted. In my opinion, there were indeed lengthy, discursive, often irrelevant written materials. There were oral submissions that misunderstood the essential elements of one of the charges. There were submissions that spoke of the legal doctrine of duress that were inapposite and ill-conceived. One subpoena sought materials stretching back many years. Another sought details of a psychiatric hospital admission without an identified date. There was a seeming misconceived application to the Local Court to impose compulsory treatment upon the mother of the applicant. On the basis of the explanations for legitimate forensic purpose provided by the applicant to me, it is clear that, regrettably, he did not understand the legal doctrines upon which he was relying, and was conflating duress, self-defence, and mitigating factors - irrelevant to proof of guilt or absence thereof - in the nature of provocation. To expand upon the latter: in my opinion, a subpoena directed towards establishing a mitigating but non-exculpatory factor will often have no legitimate forensic purpose with regard to a pending criminal hearing in which a plea of not guilty has been entered. Finally, there was significant discourtesy demonstrated by the applicant in repeatedly interrupting the judgment of the Magistrate.
8. In all of those circumstances, I do not consider that it was an error on the part of the Magistrate to fail to be satisfied that either subpoena, as then framed, possessed a legitimate forensic purpose, was not too broad, and should otherwise be permitted to be issued. And to repeat: despite refusing the subpoenas, it is noteworthy that the Magistrate "left the door open" for a properly framed subpoena in the future.
9. As for the submission that the reference to "setting aside" the subpoenas when in fact they had not been issued at all could found the success of the appeal, I reject that submission as excessive formalism on the part of the applicant.
10. Turning then to the specific propositions in the amended summons: I do not perceive an error of law on the face of the record. At most, one may come to the view that the Magistrate took a somewhat prescriptive approach to questions of the breadth of the subpoenas. But I do not consider that a question of law, but rather an evaluative judgment about which minds may legitimately differ.
11. Secondly, I do not consider that the applicant was denied procedural fairness. He was permitted to file a great deal of written material. He was heard for a reasonably extended period, bearing in mind the exigencies of an undoubtedly busy Local Court list. Whilst I respectfully consider that there is something of a tone of exasperation on the part of her Honour in the Local Court transcript, that was to be expected in light of the many misunderstandings of legal matters being expressed by the applicant, the making of many irrelevant written and oral submissions, and his inability or unwillingness to focus upon the particular topics under discussion.
12. As for the proposition that there are findings or assertions incapable of being supported by the evidence in the judgment, as I have said, some of them may be contestable evaluative judgments. But that is a different matter from asserting that there was simply no evidence for any finding made in the judgment.
13. Focusing in particular on the expression of opinion by the Magistrate that subsequent events were inadmissible: in the absence of the applicant persuasively demonstrating that evidence of such events would pass the test for admissibility of tendency or coincidence or credibility evidence, in light of clearly identified facts in issue, that would indeed be the case.
14. Finally, the applicant unfortunately failed to engage before me with the test for establishment of apprehended bias first formulated in Ebner v Official Trustee in Bankruptcy (2000) 205 CLR 337; [2000] HCA 63 and spoken of most recently by the High Court in QYFM v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2023] HCA 15. I do not consider that that test has been established.
15. As for actual bias, I am completely unpersuaded as to that, not least because the Magistrate left the door wide open to properly drafted subpoenas.
16. In short, deciding this matter not on matters of form but of substance: on the written and oral material placed before the Magistrate, featuring as it did several fundamental misunderstandings of substantive criminal law and criminal procedure, I believe that it was well open to the Magistrate to refuse to issue the subpoenas, on the basis at the least that no proper legitimate forensic purpose had been sufficiently formulated by the applicant at that stage.
17. Accordingly, the amended summons must be dismissed.
18. I revert now to the remaining aspects of the notice of motion, and shall deal with the questions of costs of the failed amended summons at the conclusion of this judgment.

Review of costs orders of Registrar of this Court - notice of motion proposed order 4

1. By way of proposed order 4 in the notice of motion, the applicant sought to re-agitate by way of review two cost orders made by a Registrar of this Court.
2. The first was a costs order in his favour, relating to an occasion on which, it seemed to be conceded, the solicitor for the second respondent had failed to attend an interlocutory hearing. The Registrar had ordered that the applicant should have his costs of that occasion, limited to disbursements only because he was self-represented. The quantum of the order was $20, intended to reflect the cost of public transport between the home of the applicant on the northern beaches of Sydney, and the courthouse at Queens Square.
3. The applicant seemed to accept the proposition that he was entitled to disbursements only. But he submitted that the order was insulting in its paltriness, and should rather have been something like $1000, which, he claimed, a Magistrate had ordered in his favour many years ago, in entirely separate proceedings. He did not provide any further basis for that claim; in particular, he pointed to no disbursements that could add up to that figure.
4. Determining that review of the costs order of the Registrar: I accept the proposition that the applicant is entitled to his disbursements thrown away by the apparent absence of the solicitor for the second respondent on a prior occasion. Not having been provided with any materials to support a larger sum, the review is rejected, and the costs order in the sum of $20 is confirmed.
5. The other costs order pertained to a notice of motion filed by the applicant on 1 December 2022, which sought to amend the summons for judicial review of, and leave to appeal against, the Magistrate's refusal to issue the subpoenas. The amendments to the summons sought by the applicant, including the deletion of the NSW Police Force as second respondent, were indeed ordered. On the other hand, the Registrar also ordered that the informant in the Manly Local Court matter, Constable Murphy, be substituted as the second respondent. That was an order opposed by the applicant. In light of those countervailing interlocutory victories and defeats, the Registrar ordered that each party pay their own costs.
6. Before me, the applicant submitted that he should have his costs of that failed application to the Registrar, based on his analysis of the position adopted by the solicitor for the second respondent before the Registrar.
7. But I reject that proposed alternative costs order without difficulty: as I have explained, the ruling of the Registrar constituted some successes and some failures on the part of the applicant. And, as already discussed, his resistance to the inclusion of the informant from the criminal proceedings as a party in the proceedings in this Court was quite misconceived. I certainly do not consider that he should have his costs of this part of the proceedings as a result.
8. That review application is also rejected, with the result that that second costs order of the Registrar stands as well.

Costs of notice of motion determined by me?

1. Finally with regard to the litigation of the notice of motion before me, I proceed to determine the overarching question of its costs. As HT 69.29 shows, after reflection the second respondent sought them from the applicant.
2. As can be seen from my determinations above, except for some mechanistic proposed orders that were not opposed, I have rejected the vast bulk of the motion. Contrary to the submissions for the applicant that "in the scheme of things" "overall factors" meant that he should be paid his costs by the second respondent (HT 69.39 ff), there is no good reason why the second respondent should not have costs of that failed motion from the moving party, the applicant. I shall shortly make an order to that effect.
3. I now conclude my analysis by reverting to the question of the costs of the amended summons, which I have already dismissed.

Costs against Magistrate personally? Amended summons proposed order 6

1. The proposition of the applicant that either the Local Court or indeed the Magistrate herself personally was liable to pay his costs of the amended summons required the presence of a solicitor from the Crown Solicitors Office for some but not all of the hearing day. It was predicated, of course, on the success of the amended summons, an outcome which has not come to pass.
2. The oral thesis of the applicant was that the Magistrate personally should pay a sum, not "into his pocket", but rather towards his costs of commencing proceedings in this Court. When asked by me on what authority he based that proposition, the applicant spoke of knowing of no prohibition upon it: see HT 72.20.
3. In fact, there is a very basic one: the doctrine of judicial immunity. And although it seemingly does have its limits (as to which see Stradford (a pseudonym) v Judge Vasta [2023] FCA 1020, recently removed into the High Court of Australia), those limits have not been remotely approached in this case.
4. The application described above was, with respect, thoroughly ill-conceived. Even if the amended summons had found some success, I would have rejected it. As things have turned out, it must be rejected in any event, because the amended summons itself has been rejected.
5. For completeness, I note that the solicitor for the first respondent did not seek costs of this failed costs application from the applicant.

Costs of amended summons between applicant and second respondent?

1. The final issue requiring discussion is what costs order should be made between the applicant and the second respondent as a result of my dismissal of the amended summons. That presents something of a conundrum, because as I have discussed the second respondent conceded that part at least of the amended summons was soundly based, a concession that I have rejected.
2. As foreshadowed at the conclusion of the hearing, I set out now my initial thought that each of the applicant and the second respondent should pay their own costs of the amended summons, in order to give broad effect to my rejection of both of their positions. If my Associate hears nothing from either of those parties, that order will be made and entered 10 days after the delivery of this judgment. If either or both are dissatisfied with my initial thought, the applicant must file and serve written materials, of no more than eight pages in length, within one week of the delivery of this judgment, at 5 PM on the expiring day. Thereafter, the second respondent must do the same, one week after that date. Three days after that, the applicant must file and serve written materials in reply, of no more than three pages in length. Thereafter, I shall determine that question in Chambers.
3. In order to bring some structure and rigour to that final ancillary process, any written materials provided by either party longer than the limits set out above will be disregarded by me beyond that limit. Written materials filed more than 24 hours late will also be disregarded by me.
4. For the time being then, the costs order with regard to the amended summons between the applicant and the second respondent will be: costs reserved.

Formal orders, including summary of orders already made or rejected

1. In accordance with the above analysis, and replicating the order of dealing with issues therein, an overview of my formal orders is as follows: 1. Orders 1 and 2 in the notice of motion of 13 October 2023 have already been made, at the hearing. 2. Orders 3a and 3b in the same notice of motion have already been refused, at the hearing. 3. The amended summons of 11 September 2023 is dismissed. 4. Order 3c in the notice of motion is refused, with the result that the order of the Registrar of this Court is confirmed that the second respondent must pay the applicant $20 in disbursements pertaining to the occasion on 11 April 2023 on which there was no appearance for the second respondent. 5. Order 4 in the same notice of motion refused. Instead, the applicant must pay the costs of the second respondent of the notice of motion of 13 October 2023. The further result of the refusal of that proposed order is that the order of Registrar Hedge of 12 October 2023 that each party must pay their own costs of the 1 December 2022 notice of motion is undisturbed. 6. The application by the applicant that the first respondent or Magistrate Denes must pay the costs of the amended summons is dismissed, with the result that, between the applicant and the first respondent, each party must pay their own costs of the amended summons. 7. Costs reserved of that amended summons as between the applicant and the second respondent. If one party or both parties are not content with a proposed order that each party pay their own costs, the timetable in my judgment must be strictly complied with.

DISCLAIMER - Every effort has been made to comply with suppression orders or statutory provisions prohibiting publication that may apply to this judgment or decision. The onus remains on any person using material in the judgment or decision to ensure that the intended use of that material does not breach any such order or provision. Further enquiries may be directed to the Registry of the Court or Tribunal in which it was generated. Decision last updated: 05 April 2024