Litigant told High Court occupation was ‘disciple’

The central office of the High Court was entirely correct to refuse to accept a sworn statement in which a litigant described his occupation as “a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ,” a judge ruled.

Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said the litigant, who had sought to “duplicitously” challenge in the High Court a decision by the Residential Tenancies Board to fix a market rent for his tenancy, had issued “frivolous, grandiose and vexatious” proceedings.

“The courts are not a playground in which litigants can amuse themselves at will. For the court to bask in self-congratulatory patience for quirky insouciance of applicants would be to play the role of a judicial free-rider,” the judge said in a reserved judgment.

The central office refused to accept the man’s affidavit, on the grounds that it did not comply with the rules of the court.

Judge Humphreys said the applicants had already been engaged in an appeal of the board’s decision and therefore could not at the same time seek judicial review of that same decision.

He said the application before him was the fifth High Court action issued by the applicants.

The board had argued the tenants had decided to appeal each and every determination it made and it described their approach as a “tactic to delay and frustrate the proceedings”.