North J
In this matter, North J made orders vacating 5 scheduled hearing dates to take evidence in a part heard case.
The hearing was to consider issues relating to the question of the entitlement of the JR (deceased) on behalf of the Goolarabooloo Native Title Claim Group (the fourth applicant) to join in any native title determination. The orders were made for two reasons.
Firstly, funding had not been secured for the fourth applicant’s legal team for the hearing. Secondly, the fourth applicant may be prejudiced if forced to proceed because the careful programming orders put in place by the Court meant the fourth applicant’s witnesses would not have sufficient time to scrutinise the statements of evidence made by the other applicants and prepare responsive supplementary affidavits prior to any cross-examination of the fourth applicant’s witnesses. It is argued that it would be unfair to have accorded to the first and second applicant’s witnesses the value of that process but deny it to the fourth applicant’s witnesses.