Case Law

First identify if there are any cases that are relevant to the decision you are making. Below, we have provided links to relevant cases and short summaries of those cases to assist you. After opening one of the summary tables, you can do a Ctrl F search for keywords.

If you find a relevant case, what are the principles the decision-maker applied in reaching their decision? For example, in the matter of BAC the decision-maker (the MHC Judge) considered the applicable legislation and concluded that the scheme of the Mental Health Act means that persons who are on a forensic order and suffer from only intellectual disability will not receive treatment under that order. This principle can therefore be applied in other cases – when the person the subject of the order does not have a mental illness, only an intellectual disability, the MHRT Members can apply the principle from BAC and not include conditions requiring the person to comply with treatment.

A case citation is a standard way of uniquely describing a case – it allows people to easily identify and locate a case. Some cases are compiled and published in a journal series, known as a law report, and these are called reported judgments. Where a case has not been published, it is considered unreported and will be cited slightly differently.

Reported citation: Ngatayi v R (1980) 147 CLR 1

• Ngatayi v R – the parties’ names with a “v” in between. R represents the Crown (i.e. the Commonwealth or State).
• (1980) – the year the decision was made.
• 147 – the volume number of the law report.
• CLR – the abbreviation for the law report (i.e. Commonwealth Law Report).
• 1 – the page number of the law report on which the case starts.

Unreported citation: In the matter of SAL [2019] QMHC 3

• SAL – the pseudonym used by the Court to represent the party’s name when they want to keep it deidentified.
• [2019] – the year the decision was made.
• QMHC – the acronym used for the Court/Tribunal that made the decision (i.e. Queensland Mental Health Court).
• 3 – case number allocated by the Court/Tribunal.

The year the decision is made is written in round brackets or square brackets:

• round: the year is not needed to find the case. Where the year is not required, the reader will find the case by looking in only volume numbered 147 of the relevant law report.
• square: the year is needed to find the case. When the year is required, it is first necessary to find the law report volumes for that year and then the applicable volume.
  

The cases in this summary table are decisions published by the MHC online and they are publicly available - https://www.sclqld.org.au/caselaw/QMHC. The cases are categorised by topic. A summary of each case appears in the table and keywords can be searched by using Crtl-F and the case itself can be accessed by clicking on the case citation.

The cases in this summary table are decisions made by the MHC on appeal from the MHRT. Copies of these decisions are only made available in a deidentified form on the MHRT’s website with the permission of the MHC. These decisions are only for reference by MHRT Members and copies of the reasons or summaries should not be shared with anyone else.

These cases consider human rights and may be relevant to the subject-matter of MHRT’s jurisdiction or tribunal procedure. Given the broad application of human rights, the cases come from various courts and tribunals across a range of jurisdictions.

The summary table provides the case citation, a summary of the facts of the case, identification of the relevant human rights and the court/tribunal’s findings. A copy of the case can be accessed by clicking the case citation in the table.

The cases in this summary table all relate to administrative law principles. A copy of the case can be accessed by clicking the case citation in the first column. Search for key words within the table by using Ctrl F.