Rudolphy v Lightfoot

The applicant urged that s 364 of the Act gives me power to make the orders he seeks. That section provides that: "The Court shall be guided by the substantial merits and good conscience of each case without regard to legal forms or technicalities, or whether the evidence before it is in accordance with the law of evidence or not."

Broad as that provision may be, it does not confer a jurisdiction on the Court which it does not otherwise have under the Act. Nor does it dispense with the requirements of the Act. It merely requires that the Court should not be unduly formal or technical in the conduct of proceedings under the Act and enables it to depart from the rules of evidence.