Matthew Brady KC of Higgins Chambers hosted a lunch in chambers this week for the Chief Justices of Queensland and Nauru.  Matthew sits as a part-time judge of the Supreme Court of Nauru.Read More

While it is not a court of law where the ethical and sometimes legal obligation of expert witnesses is to declare potential or actual conflicts of interest so that their evidence can be placed in context, the Nine Newspapers use of a panel of ‘experts’ to publish an extraordinary series of articles arguing Australia must...Read More

A seminar paper available at this link aimed to answer a frequently asked question: “We don’t have the death penalty in Australia. Why is the death penalty relevant to me?” One answer to the question is that Australians travel overseas. Australians do silly things including when they are overseas. One day, someone you know may...Read More

The Australian Law Reform Commission’s report, Without Fear or Favour: Judicial Impartiality and the Law on Bias, tabled in federal parliament on 2 August makes some important recommendations on appointments of judicial officers and the importance of diversity in that process, which should be road tested in the context of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT)...Read More

The paper available at this link discusses the following recent decisions on contract law: Dyco Hotels Pty Ltd & Ors v Laundy Hotels (Quarry) Pty Ltd [2021] NSWCA 332 (Dyco) Carter v Mehmet [2021] NSWCA 286 CFMMEU v Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd [2022] HCA 1 ZG Operations Australia Pty ltd v Jamsek [2022] HCA 2...Read More

Dyco Hotels Pty Ltd & Ors v Laundy Hotels (Quarry) Pty Ltd [2021] NSWCA 332 (Dyco) – Case Review 1. This is one of those cases where four judges considered the issues, they split 2:2 on the result, and the trial decision was reversed on appeal. The equal number of judges on either side of...Read More

Can a creditor with a debt which would not be provable in a bankruptcy nonetheless present a creditor’s petition based on a failure to pay that non-provable debt? The Federal Court of Australia squarely considered this question for the first time in Australian Securities and Investment Commission v King [2021] FCA 1610, a decision of...Read More

The High Court’s recent decision in Sunland Group Limited v Gold Coast City Council [2021] HCA 35 (Sunland), delivered on 10 November 2021, has important implications for the interpretation of statutory approvals under a wide range of legislation, including approvals under planning laws. In Sunland, Stewart J (with whom Kiefel CJ, Keane and Gleeson JJ...Read More

Higgins Chambers warmly congratulates Ruth O’Gorman QC on her appointment as silk.Read More

An intellectually disabled man on death row in Singapore has won another short reprieve, but the global campaign to save him is growing. An intellectually impaired Malaysian man due to be executed in Singapore on Wednesday gained a last-minute reprieve as a result of contracting COVID-19. Nagaenthran Dharmalingam’s final legal bid to prevent being hanged...Read More