Powered by
MOMENTUM
MEDIA
A senior judge has said she cannot allow a solicitor’s conduct in a domestic violence matter to pass “unremarked”.
Justice Soraya Ryan had reservations about reviewing a man’s application under domestic violence laws, but her “serious concerns” about his solicitor’s conduct proved more pressing.
The Supreme Court of Queensland judge also made it clear she was satisfied the application for review of an interlocutory decision by a magistrate was an “easy one” to dismiss.
The unnamed solicitor made submissions without the other side present and misled a magistrate about her power to summarily dismiss the opponent’s application for a protection order.
Before a second magistrate, the solicitor made “false and exaggerated” claims about the woman’s re-filed application, despite the first magistrate having made it abundantly clear that this argument would be entirely off the mark.
“It is worth reminding those who have forgotten of a solicitor’s paramount duty to the court and the administration of justice; and their more specific duties to the court which include the duty not to recklessly mislead,” Justice Ryan said.
The Supreme Court of Queensland decision was also critical of the first magistrate’s handling of the matter, including for acting beyond her power in striking out and dismissing the woman’s application over the late filing of material.
While magistrates hold an implied power to summarily dismiss or otherwise terminate proceedings under the Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act 2012, the decision in OSE v HAN made it clear that there must be exceptional circumstances.
There were no such exceptional circumstances in this matter.
Misleading submissions in absence of opponent
Despite discussions about adjourning the temporary protection order application due to electronic filing issues, the husband’s solicitor went on to “put a few things on the record”.
These submissions – which amounted to “substantive arguments about why no variation ought to be made” – should have been “immediately shut down”, Justice Ryan said.
Instead, the solicitor was permitted to contend that the woman weaponised domestic violence proceedings, that his client’s access to their children was “unreasonably restricted”, and the woman’s supporting affidavit was “extraordinary”.
The magistrate also made adverse comments about the wife, including that the alleged breaches detailed in her material amounted to an abuse of domestic violence law processes.
At one point, Her Honour said she had a “man who’s muzzled – a man who, for a start, is not going to see his children of it, for no reasonable basis, and that just seems punitive”.
Although Her Honour verbally accepted the matters should be adjourned, she did make “formal amendments” to the protection order by reducing its conditions.
At the next appearance, Her Honour set deadlines for material to be filed ahead of a final hearing on 10 March 2026.
On 18 February, citing that the woman’s material was 27 days late, the solicitor called the matter on urgently and applied to have the matter struck out. The woman was not given notice.
There was some back and forth about the late filing issue, and the matter was stood down to allow the woman’s solicitors some time to prepare a response to the strike-out application.
Court resumed later with only the solicitor present.
Despite a prohibition on communicating with the court in the absence of an opponent, the solicitor proceeded to make submissions that would ultimately mislead the magistrate.
“I infer, at best for him, he was unaware of the relevant binding authorities on summary dismissal of applications for protection orders – even though that was the application he made; and even though simple text searches of free relevant databases or resources would have brought them up,” Justice Ryan said.
At the end of the matter, after the magistrate had decided to strike out the application on the filing issue alone, the solicitor was told the woman was likely to re-file. He responded by saying he would deal with that application “in that space”.
“If the husband’s solicitor’s reference to ‘dealing with it in that space’ was foreshadowing the position he took before the second magistrate … then he was obliged to raise that with Her Honour.
“Instead, he stayed silent,” Justice Ryan said.
False and exaggerated submissions
The woman’s application was re-filed the next day.
The solicitor sought to have this application summarily dismissed, relying on his misunderstanding of previous judgments “and his apparent ignorance of the District Court decisions which deal with the exceptional power of a magistrate to summarily dismiss an application for a protection order”.
He said this second application was “estopped” because it was determined “on the merits” by the first magistrate. This was a “complete misrepresentation of what had occurred”.
The solicitor also submitted the first application was dismissed for more than just a failure to comply with court orders, claiming it was “among a collection of factors which led the court to conclude the proceedings constituted an abuse of process”.
The solicitor omitted the first magistrate’s “clear understanding” that her order would not prevent re-filing.
“I struggle to understand what caused the husband’s solicitor to falsely state that her Honour had not dismissed the wife’s application on procedural grounds – when she plainly did.
“And I struggle to understand what caused him to exaggerate the way in which the hearing was conducted.
“Even if he left the hearing burdened by a misunderstanding of that which had occurred or how it had happened, the husband’s solicitor had the transcript,” Justice Ryan said.
Justice Ryan also found it “deeply concerning” the solicitor told the second magistrate that the first had made a finding on the merits, “when he must have known that her Honour did not do so and expected the wife to commence an identical application”.
“If, on 18 February 2026, the husband’s solicitor was of the view that Her Honour was wrong in her understanding of the effect of her order, or in her understanding that the wife could re-file, then, under rule 19.11, he was obliged to bring that to Her Honour’s attention,” Justice Ryan said.
The second magistrate refused the summary dismissal application, spurring the review application before Justice Ryan.
Citation: RMB v RTA & another [2026] QSC 245.
