EDWARDS V. OVERSEAS TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (AUSTRALIA)

.7108/51

4. J Gourley, Gort, Print, Metb,

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

OVERSEAS TELECOMMUNICAT a COMNISSION" (AUSTRALIZY

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

ty

EDWARDS

Vv.

OVERSEAS TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (AUSTRALIA)

JUDGMENT (ORAL) FULLAGAR J.

EDWARDS

OVERSEAS TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (AUSTRALIA)

JUDGMENT (ORAL) FULLAGAR J.

I am of opinion that this motion for an interlocutory injunction should be refused. I propose to express my reasons only very shortly. Before I do so there are three things I desire to say. The first is that it is, of course, distinctly understood by everybody that I am not deciding anything in the action, I am merely dealing with an interlocutory motion.

The next thing I think I should say is that the matter has been argued before me on behalf of the. plaintiff with great earnestness and care and I was impressed with the argument in chief of counsel for the plaintiff, though I think that Mr. Macfarlan has provided reasons for declining to give effect to it.

The third thing is that the affidavit read ,to me this morning, which suggested bias, or something of the kind, on the part of the Disciplinary Appeals Board under the Overseas Telecommunications Act, was, in my

opinion, inadmissible.

Coming now to the application itself, I think we start with this. If the Commission were threatening to exclude the plaintiff from a place actually in fact occupied by him and were threatening to do so in pursuance of an ultra vires decision, or a decision which there was reasonable ground for thinking was beyond power,

there would certainly be a great deal to be said for the

view that there was good ground for an interlocutory

injunction to restrain the Commission from carrying out its threat. But here the position is that for some weeks the plaintiff has not been in occupation of his position, and the injunction which I am asked to make would amount practically to a mandatory injunction to the Commission to reinstate him, and the point of view of the Court in such a case must be somewhat different from its attitude when it is merely asked to restrain the carrying out of a threat.