Shaw v Official Trustee in Bankruptcy [1999] NSWSC 256

New South Wales Supreme Court CITATION : Shaw v Official Trustee in Bankruptcy [1999] NSWSC 256 CURRENT JURISDICTION : Equity FILE NUMBER(S) : 1746/99 HEARING DATE(S) : 24 & 25 March 1999 JUDGMENT DATE : 25 March 1999

PARTIES : George Thomas Shaw (P) Official Trustee in Bankruptcy (D) JUDGMENT OF : Hamilton J

COUNSEL : Thomas Shaw, by leave (P) J White, Solicitor (D) SOLICITORS : In person (P) Kemp Strang (D) CATCHWORDS : PROCEDURE [5] - Courts and judges generally - Judges - Disqualification for interest or bias - In general - Ordinary rule - Reasonable expectation of adverse decision - Previous decision of same question of law. DECISION : Disqualification for bias refused.

THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES EQUITY DIVISION

HAMILTON J

THURSDAY, 25 MARCH 1999

1746/99 GEORGE THOMAS SHAW v OFFICIAL TRUSTEE IN BANKRUPTCY

JUDGMENT

HIS HONOUR: 1 Mr Thomas Shaw, on behalf of the plaintiff, has applied for me to disqualify myself as being apparently biased by reason of the fact that I have earlier ruled upon the validity of a different caveat but in similar terms which had been lodged by his mother. The relevant judgments, as I apprehend it, were delivered by me on 21 December 1998. Those judgments did not turn on any personal considerations relative to any member of the Shaw family, nor was there any contested evidence in those proceedings on which it was necessary for me to come to a determination, much less any question of fact which I had to determine by reference to any issue of credit. They turned on the legal question as to whether the caveat showed a caveatable interest. In those circumstances, it seems to me that it could not appear to a properly informed and objective bystander that there was any fear that I was biased in the sense in which that term is understood in the law relating to judicial bias and I decline to discharge myself from the proceedings.