Palmer v Magistrates Court of Queensland & Ors; Palmer Leisure Coolum Pty Ltd v Magistrates Court of Queensland & Ors; Palmer v Magistrates Court of Queensland & Ors [2024] QCA 8 - 6 February 2024
Country
Year
2024
Summary
APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL - PROCEDURE - QUEENSLAND - STAY OF PROCEEDINGS - GENERAL PRINCIPLES AS TO GRANT OR REFUSAL - where the appellant has been charged under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and the Criminal Code 1899 (Qld) and the prosecutions are pending in the Magistrates Court of Queensland - where neither prosecution has progressed in any substantive way due to the appellant and his interests continuing to make applications designed to bring the prosecutions to an end - where the appellant filed proceedings in the Supreme Court asserting that the prosecutions should be discontinued because they controverted earlier decisions of Superior Courts and were otherwise an abuse of process - where the respondents argued that the Supreme Court proceedings amounted to abuses of process - whether the primary judge erred in permanently staying the Supreme Court proceedings on the basis that they were abuses of process.
DALTON JA: These three appeals were heard together. They are from decisions made in the trial division on 16 November 2022. On that date the primary judge made orders in two proceedings - BS6224/21 (the Coolum Resort proceeding) and BS6350/21 (the Cosmo proceeding). Lawyers act for Mr Palmer in appealing the orders made in the Cosmo proceeding - Appeal No 15300/22. Both Mr Palmer and Palmer Leisure Coolum Pty Ltd (Leisure) were parties to the Coolum Resort proceeding, and they make separate appeals to this Court in relation to the orders made in it. That is, in Appeal No 14938/22 Mr Palmer acts for himself in appealing the decision in BS6224/21, and in Appeal No 15295/22 lawyers acting for Leisure appeal from the same judgment. In all three appeals the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) and Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) filed notices of contention. The Queensland Attorney-General intervened in the Cosmo appeal. However, as the hearing progressed, the issue the Attorney was concerned about evaporated, and the Attorney was given leave to withdraw.
I would order that the three appeals be dismissed with costs. Before descending into detail, I give an overview of my reasoning.
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