15 Jun 2021
Where a quasi‑judicial body withholds documents that the interests of justice require to be disclosed, it can be ordered to pay costs; here the applicant succeeded and was entitled to 2B costs and disbursements because the respondent declined disclosure of critical documents.
17 Feb 2021
Court held the challenged documents are, in general, subject to deliberative privilege, but special circumstances existed limitedly because the applicant lacked sufficient information to litigate key pleaded issues (whether the 21 February decision was provisional and whether change in committee composition affected natural justice). Therefore privilege was set aside in a narrowly defined set of documents/portions and those materials were ordered disclosed to the applicant's legal advisers only; otherwise privilege upheld.
2 Apr 2020
The application for indemnity costs was dismissed because the respondent's claim of deliberative privilege and its opposition to pre-commencement discovery were reasonably arguable and not flagrantly unreasonable; subsequent waiver and voluntary disclosure shortly before the hearing did not render the earlier opposition frivolous; accordingly indemnity costs were not justified and standard scale 2B costs were ordered in favour of the applicant.
3 Dec 2019
Suppression orders were necessary and granted for the interlocutory application to prevent identification of the affected person and the real risk of a concertina effect from publication of the applicant's identity; statutory confidentiality alone did not displace open justice generally but privacy and risk of identification justified suppression for this stage. The court ordered anonymisation of the applicant as 'Mr P', suppression of the affected person's identity, the law firm, details of the incident and identifying information about the applicant; suppression to continue until further or…
6 May 2016
Although the Court had jurisdiction to review its interlocutory refusal and to order discovery prior to leave in principle, the application to vary the decision and obtain discovery was declined because the requested documents were not relevant or necessary to the narrow statutory issues for a s249 leave application (timeliness, whether issues could be dealt with on appeal, and whether they were of general or public importance); deliberative materials were not justified to decide those leave issues absent special circumstances such as an allegation of bias.