R v Quinn; Ex parte Consolidated Foods Corporation
[1977] HCA 62
At a glance
Source factsCourt
High Court of Australia
Decision date
1977-07-01
Before
Aickin JJ, Gibbs J, Jacobs J
Source
Original judgment source is linked above.
Judgment (60 paragraphs)
The applicant has been able to point to many features of the Registrar's function under s. 23 which are commonly features of an exercise of judicial power and submits that the cumulative force of those features compels a conclusion that the power is judicial. Since the power, when exercised on an appeal (so called) under s. 23 (7), is a judicial power, it is to be expected that there will be an accumulation of features which can often be taken to indicate that a power is a judicial power. But the question is whether the features are inconsistent with the power, when it is vested in an administrative officer, being an administrative power; and the answer is that none of the features is exclusively related to judicial power and they are therefore not inconsistent with administrative power.
The application to the Registrar under s. 23 (1) is initiated by a person "aggrieved" and therefore there will be a dispute on the hearing of the application between that person and the registered proprietor; but many administrative decisions are made after an opportunity is given to opposed interests to appear and be heard. Town planning decisions provide one example, industrial awards another. Next, it is said that the Registrar's order, which he himself carries into effect by alteration of the register, is a final order; but here again many administrative decisions are final in the sense that they have a binding force. Such a feature is not conclusive. And the same may be said of all the other features relied on - the so-called "trappings" of curial decision-making, the nature of the discretion or duty imposed by s. 23 on the Registrar, the complexity of legal and factual questions which may arise, the degree to which rights defined by the statute are affected by the Registrar's decision. They may be suggestive of, but they are not exclusive to, judicial power.