GRGIC v AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP LIMITED [NO 2] [1993] NSWCA 125

GRGIC vy AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP LIMITED [NO 2]

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES — COURT OF APPEAL

KirBY P 17 May 1993

[1993] NSWCA 125

PRACTICE & PROCEDURE — subpoena — access to police brief — transcript of intercepted telephone conversation — notification to parties to conversation — waiver of opportunity to be heard — access to transcript allowed.

Kirby P. The background to this case is set out in the reasons which I gave for the orders which I made on 5 April 1993. Pursuant to those orders, notice was given to the two persons named — Mrs Aida Grgic and Mr Francesco Sierra. Notice was also given to Mr Anthony Grgic. He is in custody serving a sentence of imprisonment which arises out of events which are in contest before the Court.

Mr Anthony Grgic has, by letter which has been placed before me, indicated that he has no objection to the publication to the parties, and the Court, of information contained in police briefs of proceedings against himself, his wife and Mr Sierra. The police briefs contain the transcript of conversations of telephonic interceptions of conversations between Mr and Mrs Anthony Grgic. It was my concern to ensure that the subject of the interception should have the opportunity of placing any submissions before the Court before the intercepted conversations were more widely disclosed. That concern caused me to make the orders set out in my reasons of 5 April 1993.

In respect of Mrs Grgic and Mr Sierra the position iscomplicated. Although letters were sent to them, proof of which was placed before me this morning, there has been no response. They did not appear when the proceedings were called on before the Court. According to a suggestion which I made the solicitor for Australia and New Zealand Banking Group attempted to telephone Mr Sierra and Mrs Grgic. He made no contact with Mr Sierra nor personal contact with Mrs Grgic. However, he spoke, according to an affidavit which has been read before me, to a Mr Frydman, who was the solicitor for Mrs Grgic in the proceedings in the Local Court in Bankstown in May 1983, when she, like her husband had earlier been, was committed for trial for a criminal offence.