When a defendant in committal proceedings brings a claim in the Supreme Court's supervisory jurisdiction seeking a permanent stay on abuse of process grounds, the respondent's application for summary termination must be assessed under the Agar v Hyde standard — the question is whether the claims are so clearly untenable as to justify summary dismissal, not merely whether they fragment criminal proceedings. However, the stringency of the requirements for a permanent stay of criminal proceedings (requiring exceptional circumstances) must be taken into account in assessing whether the claims have any reasonable basis. The question whether the Supreme Court of Queensland has power to permanently stay committal proceedings as an abuse of process remains open.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 19 later cases that cite this judgment.
6 of the 19 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.