1. On 18 November 2025, the Registrar of the Court of Appeal referred the applicant's application for leave to appeal to me to determine pursuant to r 64.15 of the 2025 Rules. Having considered the materials filed by the applicant, I have determined, pursuant to s 14D(3) of the Supreme Court Act 1986 and r 64.15(5)(iv) of the 2025 Rules, that the application for leave to appeal is totally without merit. The application must thus be refused. My reasons are set out below.

1. The application for leave to appeal has no prospects of success and must be dismissed. That is because the judge was correct to refuse to direct the Prothonotary to accept the application for filing, for the reasons her Honour gave. Proposed ground 1 (that the judge erred in ruling that the originating motion be refused) must therefore fail. In light of that conclusion, it is not strictly necessary to consider the additional proposed grounds of appeal, but I make the following observations about those that sought to identify error in the judge's reasons.[5]
2. The judge did not err by failing to state that three of the judges nominated by the applicant for the 'special court' that he sought to have the Chief Justice assemble were Aboriginal (proposed ground 2). It was plain from the application that that was so, and the judge's failure to refer to that fact does not constitute an error.
3. The judge did not err by 'inferring that the [applicant] had suggested that the Chief Justice appoint Associate Justices' (proposed ground 3). Rather, her Honour observed that the Chief Justice cannot do so. That statement is plainly correct. It is to be noted that the application expressly sought to have the Chief Justice assemble a 'special court' comprised of persons who are not presently judges of the Court, but were described as 'specially appointed Associate Justices'. The judge was seeking meaningfully to address this aspect of the application.
4. The applicant points to this further statement in his application, under the heading 'The Grounds Relied Upon Are':

The Court has a duty to request Jaclyn Symes, the Attorney-General, to appoint as Justices for this special court three people from outside the State of Victoria and also to appoint First Peoples to these positions.

1. This proposition is wrong in law - the Court has no such duty - and the judge was not required to refer to this statement in her Reasons.[6]
2. The judge did not infer that 'all specialist courts aka "specialist lists" and some general divisional courts were within the power of the Supreme Court of Victoria even though there is no specific legislative enactment' for them (proposed ground 4). Rather, the judge said - correctly - that power to constitute a special court or tribunal resides with the Parliament, not the Supreme Court. Her Honour was correct to describe the Practice Court (to which Mr Thorpe had referred) as reflecting 'arrangements made for hearing urgent applications in the Common Law Division of the Trial Division of the Supreme Court'.[7] As the judge said, the Practice Court is not a separate court and is neither mysterious nor secretive.[8] The same may be said for the divisions of the Supreme Court to which the applicant referred in his submissions in this Court: the Common Law Division, the Criminal Division, and the Commercial Court.[9]
3. The judge also did not infer that, 'absent such legislative enactment, any exercise of judicial power in any case in any court not specifically created by Parliament is valid' (proposed ground 5).
4. Given my conclusion that the judge was correct not to direct the Prothonotary to accept the application for filing, it is not necessary for me to determine whether the judge's determination was one that engaged the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal under ss 10 and 17(2) of the Supreme Court Act 1986.[10]

[1] I note that the Supreme Court (General Civil Procedure) Rules 2025 (the '2025 Rules') came into operation on 8 September 2025. The 2025 Rules apply 'to every civil proceeding commenced in the Court whether before, on or after the commencement date' (r 1.05(1)). The Rules have remained relevantly unchanged.

[2] Re Thorpe (No 2) [2024] VSC 408, [8].

[3] Re Thorpe (No 2) [2024] VSC 408, [9]-[10] (citations omitted).

[4] Footnotes and references omitted; emphasis in original.

[5] I have not addressed proposed grounds 6 and 7, which do not seek to engage with the judge's reasons, and which are entirely inappropriate and without merit.

[6] Whisprun Pty Ltd v Dixon [2003] HCA 48, [63] (Gleeson CJ, McHugh and Gummow JJ).

[7] Re Thorpe (No 2) [2024] VSC 408, [9].

[8] Re Thorpe (No 2) [2024] VSC 408, [9].

[9] The applicant also referred to 'twenty-two other "specialist" courts,' but these were not identified.

[10] As to which, see Re Thorpe [2024] VSCA 172 (McLeish JA); O'Bryan v Lindholm [2024] VSCA 130 (Kennedy, Walker and Macaulay JJA).