CARSON v LEGAL SERVICES COMMISSIONER (NO 1) [1997] NSWCA 61

CARSON v LEGAL SERVICES COMMISSIONER (NO 1) SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES — COURT OF APPEAL

SHELLER JA, STEIN JA and GILES AJA 29 August 1997

[1997] NSWCA 61

Sheller JA, Stein JA and Giles AJA. These proceedings have been brought by Nicholas Roderick Carson against the Legal Services Commissioner (the first opponent) and the Legal Services Tribunal (the second opponent) seeking declarations and orders against them. The claim to the declarations sought against the first opponent is founded on allegations about the way in which the first opponent has dealt, both in accepting it out of time and in instituting proceedings in the Tribunal, with a complaint by Leszek Rajski pursuant to Pt 10 the Legal Profession Act 1987. The relief sought against the second opponent was for the most partconsequential upon the making of these declarations. The second opponent has filed a submitting appearance.

After the proceedings were called on for hearing on 26 August 1997, counsel had announced their appearances and Sheller JA had made a short statement, Mr Rajski was permitted to hand up to the Court a notice of motion seeking orders that:

1. Rajski be added as party to these proceedings for the purpose only of obtaining the orders sought by this motion.

2. The matter be not listed before a bench including Sheller JA for the hearing of the First Opponent's amended notice of motion or the hearing of these proceedings or at all.

3. The matter be not listed before a bench including Giles J for the hearing of the First Opponent's amended notice of motion or the hearing of these proceedings or at all.

4. Such further or other orders as may seem fit to the Court.

Presumably Mr Rajski sought to be joined as an opponent. Normally parties, and parties alone appear in litigation; see generally Australian Railways Union v The Victorian Railways Commissioners (1930) 44 CLR 319 at 331. A person not a party to proceedings has no standing to object to the membership of the Court or Tribunal assigned to hear those proceedings. This may explain the unusual nature of Mr Rajski's application. Counsel for the claimant and the first opponent made no application that any member of the Court disqualify himself. In support of his application to be joined as a party, Mr Rajski referred to material contained in two handwritten affidavits left by him with theRegistry of the Court, which we have read. He relied upon Pt 8 r 8 of the Supreme Court Rules and s 169 of the Legal Profession Act. Section 169, which gives a limited right to a complainant to appear at a hearing conducted by the Legal Services Tribunal, has no relevance to these proceedings.