Decisions Of The High Court On Appeals example essay topic

Most of the Court's work relates to the hearing of appeals against decisions of other courts. There is no automatic right to have an appeal heard by the High Court and parties who wish to appeal must persuade the Court in a preliminary hearing that there are special reasons to cause the appeal to be heard. Decisions of the High Court on appeals are final. There are no further appeals once a matter has been decided by the High Court, and the decision is binding on all other courts throughout Australia (Ackerman, 189). Rules of Court, which are made by the Justices, set out the procedural steps that legal practitioners must comply with in preparing a case for hearing, including the preparation of an Appeal Book. The Appeal Book prepared by the appellant's legal practitioner, contains basic documentation which is necessary background for the Court to consider the issue raised by the appeal (Ackerman, 32).

The Court rarely gives its decision (ie. the judgment) at the end of a hearing. Rather, the decision is "reserved" and presented some time after the hearing. Each Justice makes his / her own decision on cases, and where decisions are not unanimous, the decision of the majority prevails. The usual practice is for Justices to prepare written reasons for their decisions which are handed down by the Court at a later sitting. Printed copies of the judgments are given to the parties involved immediately after the decision is announced by the Court.

The decisions are subsequently recorded in law reports and are now also available on computerized legal data bases (Inglis, 24). 2. Set out the elements of the test of foreseeability in negligence. Give examples. It is equally important that any reform of the law of negligence does not curtail the entitlement to seek redress for civil wrongs or diminish access to justice. In addition to this, the Federal Government must place a greater focus on reducing clinical risk, improving clinical outcomes and emphasis on implementing systems of clinical risk reduction as, despite the fact that isolated claims can always be found in any jurisdiction where awards have been made which may appear excessive, many negligence claims are well based and provide an important social mechanism for compensating individuals for injuries caused by the negligence of other persons.

Furthermore, it has been claimed that defendants have fared much better in recent times than plaintiffs in personal injury proceedings and that, with the more restrictive attitude to the scope of negligence in the High Court of Australia under the stewardship of Chief Justice Gleeson, the prospects of success of plaintiffs have diminished (Stretton, 78). Similarly, the Civil Liability Act 2002 caps damages that may be awarded for past and future economic loss at 3 times the average weekly earnings as at the date of the award. Amongst other things, the Civil Liability Act 2002 also provides that a court cannot award exemplary or punitive damages in the nature of aggravated damages in negligence claims and prohibits legal practitioners from commencing or defending proceedings where there is no reasonable prospect of success. The Queensland Government is also taking a similar approach, with Queensland Premier Peter Beattie pledging to introduce a retrospective element to the State's Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 to place limits on claims and cap damages awards. The amendments proposed by the Premier would cover current and future claims and past claims that have not yet been commenced (Dixon, 188). Similar action amongst the other Australian States and Territories has been slow despite their support of a review of the law of negligence, and urgent consideration should be given by these States and Territories in implementing similar provisions in order to ensure that any reform to tort law has a consistent and national application (Ackerman, 38).

The introduction of proportionate liability amongst the Australian States and Territories would ensure that defendants in medical negligence actions may be liable only to the degree of negligence attributed to them. Accordingly, if a problem emerged with the extent of the doctor's insurance cover, the hospital would not be exposed to the full claim alone, as it is potentially the case at present. I should also note that this statement would mean the hospital, as an example, would only be liable for the proportion of negligence attributed to it (Stretton, 42). is of the view that the liability placed on a defendant in tort is too wide and the test of foreseeability in tort should be the same as applied for breach of contract. This would involve a change to the test of foreseeability in tort so that a defendant is only liable for those injuries that are 'reasonable and probable' to occur. Consequently, a defendant in tort would be absolved from liability for those injuries where there was only a remote risk that the injury would occur (Inglis, 25).