WILKIE v COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BLACKTOWN [1992] NSWCA 273

WILKIE v COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BLACKTOWN

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

SAMUELS AP 13 January 1992 [1992] NSWCA 273

CONTEMPT OF COURT — application to stay execution of orders of Land and Environment Court refused.

Samuels AP This is an informal motion to stay the execution of orders made by judges in the Land and Environment Court. Shortly, on 17 July 1990 Stein J ordered the claimant, Mr Robert Wilkie, to remove earth filling from certain land at Marsden Park which it was alleged but denied by Mr Wilkie that he owned.

Mr Wilkie has made this application today and has filed a summons in which he seeks that Stein J's orders and further orders made by Cripps CJ on 10 December 1991 should be set aside and seeks a stay of execution on those orders until appellate review may take place.

Mr Wilkie has filed an affidavit which Miss McGrath who appears for the opponent, the Council, had the opportunity of seeing only when the matter was called on. I admitted the affidavit subject to her right to object to any parts of it should she wish to do so, having had further time in which to consider its contents.

Shortly, Mr Wilkie has told me that since the orders of July 1990 he has been ill and from time to time unable to attend to business, that he never owned the land, that he can see no conceivable basis for any order against him to remove the filling, that witnesses against him had perjured themselves, that he has been denied natural justice, and generally that the orders made against him have no basis in fact or law.

The operative order, if I may call it that, which was made by Cripps CJ on 10 December 1991 is that Mr Wilkie is to be brought before the Land and Environment Court tomorrow, 14 January, if necessary by warrant which has lain in the office and will remain there until tomorrow, for the purpose of enabling the court to determine whether he has complied with Stein J's orders of July 1990. If not, Mr Wilkie is to be taken to gaol either as punishment for his contempt or for as long as it takes him to purge his contempt by complying with the orders.