A judge has adjourned trial in the defamation case by accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith to early 2022, saying relocation was not practical after COVID-19 restrictions prevented Fairfax’s witnesses travelling to Sydney.
Five enforcement officers of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will be cross-examined by lawyers for banks facing price fixing charges over their conduct following ANZ’s $2.5 billion capital raising six years ago.
Trial judges should not communicate with barristers outside of court, the High Court has ruled in a “troubling” case of apprehended bias that saw a divorcee’s counsel socialising with the judge presiding over her long-running and “tortured” Family Law case.
Defence minister Peter Dutton has given evidence of his “hurt” at trial in a defamation case over a tweet accusing him of being a rape apologist, while the judge presiding over the hearing has warned lawyers for the tweeter to act as solicitors not “supporters”.
The New South Wales government has accused anti-vaccination advocates of having a “misguided” and “one-dimensional focus” on the fundamental rights of the individual over those of a community contending with the highly-contagious Delta variant of COVID-19.
After more than a year-and-a-half of virtual trials, Australia’s barristers have adapted and come up with the best techniques to maintain an edge when cross-examining witnesses in the virtual courtroom.
Former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith is fighting to shield medical records Fairfax says should be made public to “safeguard open justice”, as trial in his defamation case against the publisher faces further delay due to COVID-19 border restrictions.
Health experts have told a court hearing a challenge to a requirement that certain workers get the COVID-19 jab that vaccinations are an effective tool in the fight against the coronavirus, despite the global surge of ‘breakthrough’ infections caused by the outbreak of the highly-infectious Delta strain.
A judge has spoken of his personal challenge as an “older, white male” in deciding the objective meaning of racism in Nine Network sports reporter Erin Molan’s defamation case, and said the matter would have been worthy of a trial by jury.
A judge hearing a price-fixing case against steel giant BlueScope has overruled an objection to the ACCCs barrister’s allegedly excessive “eye-rolling” and “scathing and sarcastic” manner during a cross-examination in which the company’s general manager was accused of lying under oath.