After the applicant had been the provider of marine pilotage services in the Brisbane Pilotage Area for the Port of Brisbane for some 30 years, its contract was not renewed and another provider was awarded the contract. Maritime Safety Queensland granted pilot licences to pilots employed by the new provider.…
Nicholson v Parole Board of Queensland [2021] QSC 325
10-12-21 / Nicholas Andreatidis KC, Matthew Hickey OAM KC — Judicial Review & Administrative
The applicant was convicted of murdering his wife in 2003. Because her body has never been found, when the applicant applied for parole, the Parole Board of Queensland was obliged to consider whether the applicant had "satisfactorily cooperated" with the investigation into her death. That obligation arose as a consequence…
Owen-D’Arcy v Chief Executive, Queensland Corrective Services [2021] QSC 273
22-10-21 / Matthew Hickey OAM KC — Human Rights & Discrimination, Judicial Review & Administrative
The applicant — a prisoner who is serving a life sentence for murder and mutilation of a corpse — has been subject to a "Maximum Security Order" since 2013. The effect of the order is that since 2013 he has been accommodated in solitary confinement and unable to associate with…
Kohler & others v Croton as delegate of the Minister for Natural Resources, Mines & Energy [2021] QSC 72
12-4-21 / Matthew Hickey OAM KC — Judicial Review & Administrative, Resources & Energy
The applicants applied for exploration permits for minerals other than coal (EPM) under the Mineral Resources Act 1989. The Minster’s delegate refused them for virtually identical reasons, including a history of non-compliance (by the applicant or a related person) with the Environmental Protection Act 1994. The applicants each brought an…
4-3-21 / Matthew Hickey OAM KC, Sophie Gibson — Judicial Review & Administrative, Resources & Energy, Human Rights & Discrimination
This was the first application to the Supreme Court of Queensland for judicial review of powers to cancel a certificate of competency issued to an open-cut examiner for a coal mine, created under amendments to the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 (Qld) in 2018. Here, the applicant's certificate…
