KATHERINE WENTWORTH v NEW SOUTH WALES BAR ASSOCIATION [1991] NSWCA 279

KATHERINE WENTWORTH vy NEW SOUTH WALES BAR ASSOCIATION

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

SAMUELS JA 29 July 1991

[1991] NSWCA 279

Samuels JA The plaintiff, Katherine Wentworth, filed a summons in the Common Law Division of the court seeking an order that she be admitted as a barrister in New South Wales, and another declaration and other orders. The matter came before Badgery-Parker J who made certain orders, and referred the summons to this court, which now has its carriage.

The plaintiff filed two notices of motion, one of which seeks discovery and the other an order for expedition. I interpolate that pursuant to orders earlier made the Attorney General has appeared in the matter as a friend of the court but has not been joined in or served with these motions. However, counsel for the plaintiff tells me, and of course I accept, that she has been informed by the appropriate officer of the Attorney General's Department that there is no objection to the making of either of the orders.

Turning first to the claim for an order for discovery, the issue is that the Bar Association objects to the plaintiffs application on two grounds: one, that she is not qualified because she has not satisfied all the educational requirements which admission entails, and, secondly, on the ground that she is not a person of good fame and character. I need, I think, say nothing further about the first ground. As to the second, the defendant, the Bar Association, has provided particulars of the allegations upon which it relies to make good its defence, and has supported them by specifying the materials which, it contends, support the particulars of want of good fame and character. To my mind the particulars are adequate and are sufficiently supported by the specification of material. The Bar Association's obligation, as I understand it in this matter, having specified its defence, is to apprise the plaintiff fairly and with adequate particularity of the grounds upon which it proposes to rely. That means not merely specifying the defects of character for which it contends, but indicating with adequate clarity the factual materials upon which the allegations are said to depend. All of this, in my view, the particulars furnished and referred to in pars 14 and 15 of the plaintiff's affidavit of 29 July 1991 achieve. If, however, it appears to the plaintiff or her advisers that the particulars are in some way defective, the course available is to make a request for further and better particulars.