WENTWORTH v NEW SOUTH WALES BAR ASSOCIATION [1991] NSWCA 281

WENTWORTH v NEW SOUTH WALES BAR ASSOCIATION

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES — COURT OF APPEAL

MAHONEY JA, CLARKE JA and HopE A-JA 25 October 1991

[1991] NSWCA 281

Mahoney JA. On 17 July 1991 Katherine Wentworth ('the applicant') applied for an order that she be admitted as a barrister. The application came before Badgery-Parker J. His Honour referred the application to the Court of Appeal.

The applicant was not then qualified for admission as a barrister in the ordinary sense. She had proposed to complete qualifications by completing the examinations prescribed for the purpose as conducted by the Barristers Admission Board. At the time when her application was lodged, she had not completed all of those examinations. It is, at the present time, not yet clear whether she has successfully completed all of those examinations. Her application therefore was presumably based upon s 4(1) of the Legal Profession Act 1987 which empowers the Supreme Court of New South Wales to 'admit persons as barristers, whether or not as provided by subsection (2)'.

The Bar Association of New South Wales opposed her admission. It has filed grounds of its opposition and hasparticularised those grounds in detail.

Interlocutory applications have been filed in the proceeding, some by the applicant and some by the Bar Association. The applications now pending fall in general into the following groups:

(a) An application by the applicant that the Bar Association be dismissed from the proceeding and its particulars of objection struck out;

(b) An application in relation to the power of the Court of Appeal to hear the application for admission and the composition of the Court for that purpose;

(c) Applications in relation to the nature of the particulars given by the Bar Association and in respect of the form of certain of those particulars; and