The Supreme Court held that s 58 of the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) does not confer on the Magistrates Court a power to stay or dismiss committal proceedings; it regulates the exercise of powers sourced elsewhere rather than creating new powers. The Court also held that s 108(2)(a) of the HRA prevents the Act from applying to proceedings commenced before 1 January 2020, with 'proceedings' encompassing committal proceedings notwithstanding their administrative character. The Court declined to answer the referred questions as hypothetical, finding insufficient findings of fact by the Magistrate (including no finding of unreasonable delay attributable to the prosecution) and that the questions were framed in impermissibly general and abstract terms, and left unresolved whether the relevant HRA provisions are picked up and applied in federal criminal jurisdiction.
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