Summary heading
A10117
Function and purpose
This
series documents cases known as Court Book cases that were heard before a
single Justice[i] of the High
Court of Australia. Court Book cases
were so called because they were entered in a High Court register known as the
Court Book.
Court Book cases were usually initiated by appeals or
applications to the High Court. They
were predominately concerned with seeking revision or reversal of the findings
of Commonwealth officials. They also
included applications seeking particular provisions under Federal legislation.
The
cases in this series were registered in the Court Book at the Principal
Registry of the High Court (located in Victoria between 24 April 1907 and 12
August 1973) and at the Victorian Registry between 13 August 1973 and 31
December 1973 (the Principal Registry having moved to NSW).
High Court records administration
This is one of many
High Court case file series held by the National Archives of Australia. Multiple series were necessary due to the
administrative structure of the High Court and the different types of cases
heard by the High Court. The High Court
has a circuit system and hears cases in every state and territory in mainland
Australia. Each state and
territory has its own registry, one of which was designated the principal
registry (the administrative headquarters of the High Court) until the
establishment of the permanent principal registry in Canberra at the end of
1980. Litigants could lodge their legal
matter at the state registry where they resided or carried on business, or at
the principal registry. Victoria was
the principal registry from 1903 until 13 August 1973. During this period, its registers were
identified by their Principal Registry status rather than their location.
Until 1973 (in the case of NSW) and for other registries
until 1974, each registry maintained 3 separate registers or ‘Books’ for High
Court cases and registry staff would enter a case in the appropriate
register.
- The Cause Book that registered single
Justice cases known as Causes.
These were usually lawsuits initiated in the High Court
under its original jurisdiction
- The
Court Book – as mentioned above, this also recorded single Justice cases
but they consisted mainly of appeals against Commonwealth officials and
various types of applications under Federal legislation
- The Full Court Book that registered
cases to be heard by more than one Justice. They included appeals from the State supreme courts
from courts with Federal jurisdiction (both prescribed in the Judiciary
Act to be heard by the Full Court) and all constitutional cases. A single Justice could refer
significant cases to the Full Court.
These cases would therefore be registered in one of the single
Justice registers – the Court or Cause Books -and also in the Full Court
Book
By
the beginning of 1974, each High Court registry had commenced a combined
register to record all High Court cases lodged or heard at that registry. This change in record keeping signified the
end of series CRS A10117. Subsequent
Court Book case files for the Victorian registry can be found in series CRS
A10074.
Single Justice cases
A single Justice hears all Court Book cases but, as mentioned above, he
or she can refer any case or question to the Full Court (more than 1 Justice
and usually 3-5). This enabled a single
Justice to ensure that the Full Court hears legally significant or complex
matters and that the Full Court hears all Constitutional matters[ii].
Single Justice cases were traditionally described as being
‘heard in chambers’ and section 16 of the Judiciary Act discusses jurisdiction
in chambers. However, this did not mean
that they were confidential matters.
Generally, they were open to the public and the records of these cases
are treated the same as for open court hearings[iii].
The Federal Court of Australia was established in 1977. Since then, jurisdiction for most types of
single Justice matters registered in the Court Book had passed to the Federal
Court’s Administrative Law Division and were no longer heard by the High Court.
Contents
Most
cases in this series concern one the following subject areas:
- Taxation appeals from the
Board of Review and directly from the Commissioner of Taxation,
- Extensions of patent applications;
- Appeals from the
Commissioner of Patents and Trade Marks;
- Applications under the Life Insurance Act
Other subject areas include:
- High
Court administrative procedures under the 1939 Trading With The Enemy
Act
- Appeals
from the findings of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and
Arbitration, and from 1956, appeals from the Commonwealth Conciliation
and Arbitration Commission.
Types of initiating documents found in this series
·
The initial document in appeals from the Commissioner
of Taxation was often entitled ‘Transmission of Objection’. This document noted that the appellant had
made objections to their income tax assessment by the Commissioner of Taxation
and had requested that these objections be treated as an appeal to be forwarded
to the High Court of Australia.
Alternatively, the first document in taxation appeal cases could be
entitled ‘Notice of Appeal’. The Notice
of Appeal identified the grounds for an appeal from a decision of either the
Commissioner of Taxation or the Taxation Board of Review.
·
The initial document in extension of patents cases was
either a notice of motion, stating that the case would be heard on a particular
date or an originating summons, calling upon all parties to the case to attend
on a particular date.
·
The initial document in appeals from the Commissioner
of Patents was either a notice of motion or a notice of appeal
·
The initial document in applications under the Life
Insurance Act was usually a notice of motion.
Other documents on the case file could include the following:
- Affidavits – a written
statement in place of verbal evidence.
The author is called the deponent and has to sign the statement and
swear to the truth of its contents
- Exhibits – a document,
photograph or other object shown in court and referred to and identified
in written evidence
- Judgement and Orders – the
decision on a proceeding was stated in the judgement or order of the
court. It was based on the reasons
for judgement of a majority of Justices.
Where there was a tied vote, an appeal case was dismissed. In Cause cases, the opinion of the
Chief Justice or most senior Justice prevails.
- Previous court material –
documents from the court or courts from which the appeal was brought. These documents usually included the
judgement and reasons for judgement and often the transcript of
proceedings as well as any other documents thought relevant
- Reasons
for judgement – the reasoning behind the Justices’ position on the
case. This could be a joint
statement or individual statements by each Judge, including dissenting
judgements.
- Appeal
Books
Documents relevant to an appeal
case that have been bound into a volume or volumes. Procedures and requirements for appeal
books are stated in the High Court Rules.
·
Transcript Record of Proceedings
On the case file, this usually means a compilation of the most
relevant case documents, including in the case of Appeals, the judgements and
other relevant documents from previous court cases. This is distinct from the better-known meaning of transcript as
simply the daily record of the oral proceedings in the court. While some case files will contain both
selective record transcripts and daily oral transcripts, please note that the
High Court had a separate record keeping system for the latter. As at 19 January 2006, these are still held
by the High Court, and are further discussed in the Relationships with other
Records
Please note that many cases will only consist of two or three documents,
particularly if the case was withdrawn, discontinued or quickly resolved.
Related legislation
CONSTITUTION OF AUSTRALIA 1901
JUDICIARY ACT 1903
- Section 15 Exercise of
jurisdiction
- Section 16
Jurisdiction of a single Justice
- Section 18 Reference
to a Full Court
Using the series
- Items on database
All case files for this series held by the National Archives of
Australia have been entered on RecordSearch, the Archives online database.
- Keywords
i) Names of individuals and companies: Case files entered on
RecordSearch can be retrieved by keyword searches on individual and
company names involved in the case.
Item titles on RecordSearch list the plaintiff(s) first and the defendant(s)
appear after the word ‘versus’.
For example, BLANKFIELD Israel versus Commissioner of
Taxation. The item titles are
based on what the High Court called the short title – the title that
appeared on the file cover.
Official court documents within the file have the full or long
title and these often include extra names associated with the case. These names have been added to the item
titles on RecordSearch. Where there
is a large list of names, not all have been shown in the item title; at
the end of the title the phrase “and others” has been inserted and the
rest of the names have been added to the item Note. Keyword searches on these names will
retrieve the record, though the name occurs only in the Note
ii) Types of cases: Many file titles also include reference to the
type of case. For example, in this
series, keyword searches on one of the following terms: taxation,
patent, trademarks, trading enemy, arbitration will all retrieve
records
- Titles qualified by ‘file cover only’
In many instances, the Archives hold a file cover only (the contents
having been removed, most often to be incorporated with records of a later
hearing) and this has been noted after the item title entered in
RecordSearch. If the file cover indicates where the papers have been sent,
this will usually be included in the title field. Otherwise, the High Court Principal
Registry may be able to identify the file location via the registers.
Access conditions
Under Section 19 of the Archives
Act, the access provisions of the Archives Act do not cover court records
unless Regulations have been made.
However, since 1996, the Archives has had an agreement with the High
Court that enables the Archives to give access to some records of the High
Court, in accordance with Court Rules.
This agreement applies to records in Archives custody only. The records in this series were presented in
open court and consequently, the subject matter has always been in the public
domain. (Open court included hearings
in chambers before a single Justice).
Therefore, the 30-year rule, which applies to the generality of
Commonwealth records, has not been applied under the terms of this
agreement. Nevertheless, each file is
examined before public release to ensure that no material is on the file that
was not presented in open court and to identify any suppression orders that
require material on the file to remain confidential.
Physical characteristics
Each case file in the series usually had an original paper
file cover, coloured light blue or grey, with “In the High Court of Australia”
or similar printed at the top.
Underneath this, appeared the record number and the short title (usually
Name versus Name – for example, Jones v Smith). Below this was a printed table of contents, with one column
titled “Nature of document”. The other
column provided a printed number for each document, in the order that they were
filed. This number was also written on
the document. Documents within the file
displayed the full or long title on their cover page. This title listed the names of all parties involved in the case.
Around about 1980, High Court registry staff added a yellow
cardboard file cover with a red fabric spine to all files in this series. Only minimal details were copied from the
original cover, usually just the short title and the record number.
Files in this series can vary from only a few pages to
several volumes. The average file is
less than 100 pages.
Many of the files in this series are still folded in two - this
was how the case files were probably carried during the case proceedings: the folded case file was tied up with maroon
tape and carried with other case files and documents.
When a researcher at the National Archives of Australia requests a file, it
will usually need to go to the Preservation section first for treatment to
unfold the file.
The case files can include plans, photographs and other illustrative material
used as exhibits in the case.
System
of arrangement and control
- Control
symbols
1) Record number format
The record keeping system of the High Court Registry controlled case files
by means of an annual single number system, with the year as the second
component (for eg 5/1907).
However, due to limited computer functionality at the time the data
entry of this series was first begun, all the items of this series are
shown in the Archives online database with the year as the first component
(1907/5).
2) Unique identification of each file
As each registry created case files for each type of case (Cause, Court
and Full Court), and all of these were controlled by an identical annual
single number system, it was necessary also to specify the registry and
type of case to provide a unique control for each case file. This was particularly important, as
there was frequent movement of files between High Court registries. The registry and case type information
was hand-written at the top of the file cover. In this series, it was usually written as PR Court Book
(where PR stands for Principal Registry) or Vic Court. This information was not incorporated
as part of the file number and the Archives has not included it in the
control symbols in RecordSearch.
However, the series registration contains this information and the
series number is always included as an essential part of Archives record
identification and record citation.
3) 1973 control symbols with A & B prefixes
On 13 August 1973, the Principal Registry moved from Victoria to NSW. The Chief Justice of the time, Sir
Garfield Barwick, ordered that all Victorian cases pending from this date
should be renumbered, commencing again from 1/1973. Therefore, the Court Book has two
blocks of record numbers for 1973.
These are:
1.
1/1973-14/1973 for cases registered while the registry was the
Principal registry
2.
1/1973-23/1973 for a) cases renumbered because they were still
pending when the registry became the Victorian registry (this included cases
from 1972 and cases from the Principal Registry block of 1973 cases) and for b)
cases first registered after the registry had become the Victorian registry.
To avoid the confusion of files with identical numbers, High Court registry
staff added A or B prefixes to the record numbers on the file covers: A prefixes were for cases registered in the
1973 Principal Registry block of numbers and which did not need to be
renumbered; B prefixes were for all the Victorian Registry block of numbers
(the renumbered cases and those first registered by the Victorian
Registry). Please note that some
numbers in the A sequence will be missing because they were renumbered. For example, the case that would have been
1A was renumbered to 7B. (In
RecordSearch, the record number is retrieved as 1973/7B). As at 9 January 2006 some numbers in the B
sequence are also missing, but with help from the High Court registry staff
these should be identified soon.
- Case
files with multiple physical units
In some instances, the case file consists of a number of physically
discrete parts. In these cases, a
suffix has been added to the parent control symbol as required to create a
uniquely identifying control symbol for each part. For example, the sixteenth case file of
1950 has two parts that are controlled as 1950/16 PART 1 and 1950/16
PART 2.
- Case
files with more than one record number
This occurred when the case was registered in more
than one High Court series. There were
two reasons for this:
1. Cases
were usually lodged in the home state of the instigator of the court action but
the High Court may have heard the case in a different state. The file was therefore transferred to the
registry of the second state, and on receipt in that state it was re-registered
with a new identifying record number in the Cause Book for that state. The original control was not cancelled or
obliterated since it remained an important element of the identity of the
file. If the case file was subsequently
returned to the original registry the file would revert to its original control
and be stored accordingly.
2. The
single Justice hearing the Cause case frequently referred them on to the Full
Court. The case would then be allocated
a record number in the Full Court Register.
The information for both record numbers was recorded in the relevant
Cause Book and Full Court Book (the registers) and on the file cover – the
original number in the standard position and the latter number at the top of
the file cover, together with the relevant registry and register.
When a hearing was concluded, the normal practice
was to return the file to the State registry where the case was originally
registered. However, this did not
always occur. Therefore, the
identification of the ‘active’ control symbol by the Archives was based on
which record keeping system the file was found to be physically part of at the
time of transfer. The other record
number has been inserted in the alternative record number field of the
RecordSearch database, so that searching by this number will also retrieve the
record.
Where the file cover citation was not complete (for
example – Cause 1903/1 but no registry indicated), the Archives was unable to
insert the citation as an alternative record number as the relevant series was
not identified. Instead, the Archives
included the incomplete information as an item note.
- References
to record numbers for other case files
A single High Court justice may have heard a case and at a later date,
participants appeal to the Full Court.
In this instance, the two cases are separate entities and the two
case files remained separate.
However, the Full Court case record number was sometimes noted on
the single justice case file cover and vice versa. This file reference has been included
as an item note.
New CRS series for combined register – Victorian
variation
As mentioned above in the Function and Purpose section, each High
Court registry by 1974 had commenced a combined register that recorded all case
files lodged or heard at that registry.
This change in record keeping prompted a new series registration for
each State registry to follow on from the 3 previous series. However, Victorian records varied from this
pattern. All 1974-1980 Victorian
records (Court, Cause and Full Court) had been filed with the Full Court
records in the High Court Archives and they were all transferred and registered
as part of the existing Full Court series CRS A10074. The new series for all Victorian records (CRS A12072) commenced
from 1981.
Relationships with other records
- Control
records
The control records for this series are the Court Book registers that are
still held by the Principal Registry of the High Court of Australia. The High Court Principal Registry also
holds a card index that can be searched by names of parties involved in
the case.
- Transcripts
As mentioned in Contents sub-section above, most oral transcripts
are still held by the High Court Principal Registry. They are apparently fairly complete
from 1952 and stored in date order.
- Series
links
These can be accessed from the series registration page. They display the relationship of other
registered series with this series.
Custodial history
- Centralisation
of High Court archives in Canberra
Prior to 1980, each State Registry retained its own files, including
the case files and registers. When
the Principal Registry moved to Canberra in 1980, the archives of the NSW and
Victorian Registries were also moved there. The archives of other State Registries were moved in 1981.
Series history
- High
Court Project
As part of the High Court of Australia Centenary in 2003, the High
Court provided funding for a project to transfer to the National Archives
of Australia all case files dated 1931-1980. The project commenced in July
2004 and was completed in June 2005.
The project rehoused the records in acid free folders and
containers to enhance the long-term preservation of the files. The project also entered all case files
as items in the National Archives’ online database, RecordSearch. Case files dated 1903-1930 have already
been rehoused and entered on RecordSearch by a previous project.
Sources
Australian Government, Attorney General’s Department, SCALEplus – Law
Resource, Commonwealth of Australia 2004, published online at http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/
Blackshield, A R, Coper M, & Williams, G (eds) The Oxford
Companion to the High Court of Australia, Oxford University Press, 2001
Marantelli, S & Tikotin, C, The Australian Legal Dictionary, (2nd
ed.) Edward Arnold Australia, 1985
Quick, Sir John & Groom,
Littleton E, The Judicial Power of the Commonwealth with the Practice and
Procedure of the High Court, Charles F Maxwell, 1904
Endnotes
[i] Justice is
the title for judges of superior courts including the High Court of Australia
and the State Supreme Courts. In
transcripts of cases, the ‘J’ after a surname only refers to justices, not
judges of lower courts. For example,
Murphy J: This is read as Mr Justice
Murphy.
[ii]Blackshield,
A R, Coper M, & Williams, G (eds) The Oxford Companion to the High Court
of Australia, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp 287-288
[iii] Advice
from High Court Registry 12/12/05