The Court of Appeal held that r 10A of the Supreme Court (Court of Appeal) Rules 2005 (WA), introduced in May 2025, is modelled on and fulfils the same function as O 67 r 5 of the Rules of the Supreme Court 1971 (WA), and the principles collected in Ex parte [name withheld] apply equally to r 10A leave applications. The Court refused leave to file an application seeking summonses to produce documents and appointment of a digital forensic commissioner, finding the proposed application was an abuse of process and vexatious because it sought to re-litigate matters already determined in earlier decisions, was entirely speculative, and had no reasonable prospect of success. The Court also confirmed that s 40(1)(f) of the Criminal Appeals Act 2004 (WA) was not enlivened where no genuine question involving scientific investigation was identified and the asserted distrust of evidence integrity did not constitute such a question.
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