Special Leave to Appeal (2nd Edition)
By David O'Brien
Published 2007
RRP AUD 88.00
300 pages
ISBN 9780980322002
The most comprehensive statement of the law and practice of applying for special leave as is available. With reference to over 1,800 decisions, and relevant statutory provisions including the new High Court Rules 2004, this work is an invaluable aid to preparing to make or meet an application.
Library History
Extracts from "The Library of the Supreme Court of Queensland" by M A Golliker, The Australian Library Journal, July 1970 pp.200-203
On 11th December 1968, The Supreme Court Library Act, 1968, received Royal Assent. The Act was a milestone in the history of the Library: it incorporated the Supreme Court Library Committee, the earliest reference to which can be found in the Regulae Generalaes of 1866. However, the Library itself began a few years before the formation of the Committee in 1866. In 1861, the Legislative Assembly allocated the sum of £100 ‘towards providing a Library for the Supreme Court’, and in 1862 61 volumes of English law reports were acquired. By 1881 the Library contained some 2,000 volumes and had just printed a 69-page author catalogue which included a Roll of Barristers of the Supreme Court of the Colony of Queensland. It contained 38 names…
The 1866 Regulae Generalaes created two Boards of Examiners. These rules related to the examination and admission of Barristers and Attorneys, and provided that the fees paid by candidates should be applied to the purchase and maintenance of a library for the use of the Supreme Court…
Since 1883, the Supreme Court Library has been closely associated with the publication of reports of Queensland Supreme Court cases. The Library Committee made a yearly grant to the Queensland Law Journal ‘to assist publication of reports of cases in the Supreme Court’. The subsidy ceased in 1901, when the Council of Law Reporting was formed… The Council …publishes the Queensland Reports and gives an annual grant to the Library.
Thus the Supreme Court Library has become the focal point of several services to the legal profession in Queensland…Between 1883 and 1968, the position of Librarian was held by only four people, Messrs. Thorrold, Roy, Keogh and Smith. Mr. Smith was appointed in 1919 and remained in office till his death in 1968. During the 49 years of his service, ‘The Colonel’ was often asked to draw upon his vast memory of legal events in Queensland, to assist where written records failed. He was a legend in legal circles.
In September, 1968, five months after ‘The Colonel’s’ death, the atmosphere of the Library, largely unchanged for over 100 years, experienced a dramatic upheaval. The Supreme Court building, in which the Library occupied seven rooms, was badly damaged by fire. Fifteen thousand books were damaged by water and 2,000 were completely destroyed. The task of transferring the entire Library totalling 30,000 volumes to temporary premises, and of drying, sorting and rebinding the damaged books was attacked with awe. Within a year, all 15,000 books were rebound and the Library had once again moved to temporary premises…
On 13th April, 1970, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth officially opened the new District Courts’ Building… [However, it wasn't until 1980 that the Library moved to its present location on the 4th floor of the Supreme Court Building. The total area occupied is 1,440 square meters.]
The Supreme Court Library looks forward to a period of rapid development…And it is a safe guess that the Committee’s Minute Books will no longer contain resolutions such as one passed on 16th July, 1898: ‘The Secretary suggested that the Library messenger be provided with a pair of silent slippers with a view to quietness in the Library. Resolved that a pair of list slippers be got.’ But there may well be a limit to future technological improvements: one can imagine a repetition of the heated debate on a 1895 motion that a ‘typewriter be got for the use of the Librarian’, should the Library ever consider the installation of a computer.