Court Observation Report at the Supreme Court of Victoria

COURT OBSERVATION REPORT AT THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA
INTRODUCTION
My court observation sessions happened in Victorian state. I did the observation at the Supreme
Court of Victoria. The court has two major divisions which are the Trial Division and the court
of Appeal. The court has both the Supreme Court judges and associate judges. The chief justice
is the head of the Victorian Supreme Court while the Trial Division is headed by a principle
judge. My observation was mainly centered around court room setting, criminal and civil
procedures, personal observation of practical aspects of law versus the known theory and a
research based observation on the appellate jurisdiction of the supreme court and the difference
between the commercial section and the common law section of the trial division as reported
below;
COURT ROOM SETTING
During court observation assessment, I visited the Supreme Court of Victoria, Trial Division
Located at 210 William Street Melbourne on 10th April 2019 from 9.30 am to 12 o’clock and
attended a commercial court session first then a criminal court session. Both sessions took
duration of 3hours 30 minutes. The court matter in the commercial court was adjudicated by
Justice Sifris. The case was commercial in nature hence falling within civil litigation. The case
heard on particular date came under a corporations list. The matter was cited as Brady Queen Pty
Ltd and 280 Queen Street Pty Ltd & .Anor (No3) this matter was coming for continuation from a
previous hearing and determination made in 2018 which was No 2. The session began
immediately the judge entered the court room. The court assistants read out the case name and
the matter began and ended with the judge giving his final verdict since it was a judgment day.

The criminal case is yet to be reported in the Victorian law reports hence unable to get its full
citation
Brief Facts of the commercial case
The case was a civil litigation and commercial in nature and was instituted in the commercial
section of the Supreme Court. The parties to the suit were shareholders in a company called 280
pty ltd. The same company was the owner of the land situated at 272-280Queen Street. The
plaintiff in the case alleged that Austhome development who is one of the defendants and a
trustee of Mr. Wu family trust and Mr. Wu himself were oppressing the plaintiff, Brady queen
and not acting in the interest of all the members of the company. The plaintiff owned 2/3 of the
shares while the defendant owned 1/3 of the shares and therefore the only remedy was the
plaintiff to buy out the shares of the defendant. The purchasing decision of the plaintiff was
based on section 233 of the Corporations Act of 2001 both parties agreed to idea but the dispute
arose as to valuation of shares methodology and who was to value the shares.
The court adopted the plaintiff’s proposal as to share valuation methodology and decided that the
court was not the appropriate entity to do the valuation and that the exercise required a valuation
expert. The court further proceeded by appointing a referee who was a third party as an expert to
value the shares. The expert did the valuation and presented the valuation report to court as
expert witness evidence. The court adopted the report fully and used it to pay the defendant his
amount of shares.
Criminal case facts
The criminal court section adjudicated a murder case whereby a husband who had divorced the
wife though still staying together hit the wife on the head with a wooded table leg. The life

remained unconscious as the husband proceeds to strangle her with an electric cord. Mr. Somas
who is the accused later fled to Queensland but was arrested after the body had been recovered
and extradited to Victoria to face murder charges in a Victorian Court. The criminal act
happened within the territorial jurisdiction of Victoria. The husband entered a plea of not guilty
and raised a defence of self defence claiming that the wife assaulted him. The magistrate refused
soma’s defence and remanded him in custody to appear before the Supreme Court of Victoria
because the case was a strong murder case. The accused was produced in Criminal court section
of the Supreme Court of Victoria on 10 April 2019. The prosecutor adduced evidence of self
confession to police who arrested the accused and nephew. The accused told the nephew that
once done it is done before fleeing to Victoria. The case was heard by Justice Andrew Tinney
who refused to accept the defence counsel’s submissions claiming that they could not mitigate
the circumstances of the killing. The accused was to be back in court at a later date for further
hearing, judgement and sentencing.
The phase of litigation during observation
The above cited commercial case was at the judgement stage whereby a hearing had already
been conducted in the previous years and it was the time for the judge to give the verdict. The
criminal case was coming for first hearing stage. There were no preliminary issues or questions
raised in the commercial matter at this stage since the case was past hearing stage. The judge was
giving substantive judgments to questions and issues raised in the past hearing sessions and
delivered his final verdict. The murder case however had a lot of issues to determine and each
time a question was raised for instance concerning the mental capacity of the accused, the judge
could listen to submissions from both the prosecution and defence counsel before making a
ruling. The defence counsel made a submission on mitigation factors that could reduce the