Disciplinary Tribunals / Judicial Review

We have acted for a number of registered building practitioners facing inquiries into their conduct by the Building Practitioners Board. We have also acted for practitioners in the Building Appeals Board, which, amongst other things, hears appeals from decisions of the Building Practitioners Board by conducting re-hearings.

We recently acted for a practitioner in the Building Appeals Board who was successful in having 6 findings of “guilt” made by the Building Practitioners Board overturned (3 findings were left to stand) and the penalties imposed by the Building Practitioners Board were significantly reduced from a 3 month suspension of registration and maximum fine to a smaller fine with a reprimand and no suspension. The Building Appeals Board also ordered the Building Practitioners Board to pay the practitioner’s costs of the appeal.

We have also been successful in acting for a building practitioner on an application for judicial review of findings and decisions made by the Building Practitioners Board in a case where it found our client “guilty” of 10 allegations it had made against him and had sought to impose the maximum fine and to reprimand him. Following a hearing by the Supreme Court, each of the findings and decisions made by the Building Practitioners Board were quashed on the basis that the Building Practitioners had denied our client natural justice and that the denial of natural justice was of “such seriousness” that the Court should act to do so. View Document (Doc 209KB)

Whilst not in the context of a disciplinary proceeding, we have also successfully obtained judicial review quashing a decision by the County Court to stay our client’s proceedings because the County Court found that they arose wholly or predominantly from a domestic building dispute. The effect of the County Court’s decision, if allowed to stand, would have been to require our client to commence proceedings at VCAT. However, the Supreme Court quashed the County Court’s decision on the basis that the proceedings did not arise wholly or predominantly from a domestic building dispute and that in finding that they did the County Court had fallen into jurisdictional error. View Document (Doc 230KB)