Grants of Special Leave to Appeal in the High Court of Australia

On Friday, 17 August 2012 the High Court of Australia granted special leave to appeal in four cases.

The first is Baini v The Queen, an appeal from a decision of the Victorian Court of Appeal that considered the circumstances in which certain counts in an indictment ought to be severed, and whether or not the failure to sever occasioned a miscarriage of justice in relation to the whole of the indictment, or merely the count not severed.

Special leave was granted in two taxation cases.  The first is Mills v Commissioner of Taxation, an appeal from a decision of the Full Federal Court which held that because the purpose of a scheme involving the issue of unsecured subordinated notes was to enable subscribers to obtain imputation credits, and the imputation credits were not simply a natural incident of the capital raising being undertaken, the Commission of Taxation was entitled to make a determination that no imputation benefits would be allowed.  The second is Commissioner of Taxation v Consolidated Media Holdings Ltd, an appeal from a decision of the Full Federal Court which allowed an appeal by the taxpayer against an assessment which included a capital gain of around $400m arising from an off market share buy-back by its wholly-owned subsidiary, Crown Melbourne Limited.

Finally, special leave to appeal was also granted in Commissioner of Police v Eaton, an appeal from a decision of the NSW Court of Appeal which held that the NSW Industrial Relations Commission had jurisdiction to determine an unfair dismissal claim made by a probationary constable, notwithstanding the provisions of section 80 of the Police Act 1990 which enabled a probationary police officer to be dismissed at any time and without giving any reason.