Holroyd City Council v Khoury [2016] NSWLEC 29

Land and Environment Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: Holroyd City Council v Khoury [2016] NSWLEC 29 Hearing dates: 29 March 2016 Date of orders: 29 March 2016 Decision date: 29 March 2016 Jurisdiction: Class 4 Before: Moore J Decision: At [9] Catchwords: CONTEMPT – orders to attend to answer contempt charge – failure to attend as ordered – bench warrant issued for arrest to bring before the Court Legislation Cited: Civil Procedure Act 2005 Category: Procedural and other rulings Parties: Holroyd City Council (Applicant) Robert Khoury (Respondent) Representation: Counsel: Mr M Fozzard, barrister (Applicant) No appearance (Respondent)

Solicitors: Bilias & Associates (Applicant) File Number(s): 40945 of 2014 Publication restriction: No

EXTEMPORE Judgment 1. HIS HONOUR: Mr Fozzard of counsel read, on behalf of the Applicant, Holroyd City Council, an affidavit of service of Malcolm Colin Grace setting out the steps that were taken to comply with the orders of Sheahan J to bring to the attention of Mr Robert Khoury the necessity for him to attend before me this morning to answer the charge laid by Holroyd City Council that he be held in contempt of orders made by this Court and that he be punished for that contempt. 2. I am satisfied that all the various methods of communication set out in the orders of his Honour have been complied with. 3. When the matter came before me this morning at 9.30 Mr Khoury was not in attendance and I had the court officer call the matter three times outside the Court. There being no attendance in response to the call, I proceeded to deal with an application made by Mr Fozzard on behalf of the Council that a warrant be issued for Mr Khoury's arrest to bring him before the Court to answer the charge laid against him. 4. Mr Fozzard handed up Short Minutes of Order and, after some discussion of them and amendments to their terms, I have made two orders this morning. 5. The first order is for the issue of an arrest warrant to order the Sheriff of New South Wales to arrest Mr Khoury and bring him before the Court at 10.00 am on Thursday 31 March 2016 for the purpose of answering the charge that has been laid against him. 6. The second order that is made is that the matter will be adjourned to that time and date before me for the purposes of dealing with the motion of contempt. 7. I have arranged for Mr Fozzard's instructing solicitor to send me an amended copy of the Short Minutes of Order that set out the matters clearly to give effect to the amendments to the Short Minutes of Order that I have made and initialled and placed on the Court file (to reflect the orders that I have just proposed). I will also, upon receipt of a draft order to the Sheriff pursuant to s 97 of the Civil Procedure Act 2005 for the arrest of Mr Khoury, check that draft document to be provided to me and make such amendments (if any) as might be appropriate; execute the instruction to the Sheriff and transmit it to the Sheriff. 8. I have already checked with the Sheriff's office this morning, in anticipation of this possible eventuality, as to the amount of time that might be needed for the execution of a warrant and it is my understanding that the time frame proposed to be set out in the warrant for Mr Khoury's arrest is appropriate and able to be met by the Sheriff.