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Erudite Legal commits to endless recusal applications
In yet another messy chapter of the Erudite Legal fiasco, the defendants have made another application to have the judge recuse himself and have delayed progress even further.
Naomi Neilson
The Victorian Supreme Court proceedings involving People Shop, which traded as Euridite Legal, have been plagued with hindered disciplinary proceedings, baseless allegations levelled at practitioners and boards, and a seemingly endless stream of recusal applications.
In the latest chapter, the three have yet again applied to have Justice James Gorton recuse himself. Kuksal appeared alone, claiming Xu could not appear online because she was moving out of his home and Ansell supposedly “did not have reliable internet access”.
The application has pushed back the Victorian Legal Services Board’s request that the claims be set aside, struck out, stayed or dismissed.
Despite being told to send the court written submissions three days in advance of any recusal application, Kuksal’s submissions were only made orally and included a repeat of previously dealt with allegations.
Kuksal also took the court through allegations against the board’s counsel and made a bizarre claim that Justice Gorton had encouraged the board to keep the counsel and to make a strike out application.
His case relied on the contention that when “serious allegations” are made, the subject of them stands aside until an investigation either determines the truth of the allegations or until after it was concluded the maker of the allegations had done so dishonestly.
Justice Gorton said he did not accept the contention.
“A litigant might genuinely believe that a judicial officer is acting dishonestly, without that meaning that the judicial officer must recuse himself or herself,” Justice Gorton said.
“I do not accept that because the plaintiffs have made serious allegations of impropriety, the case must stop until those allegations have been investigated. It is the perception of the reasonable and disinterested lay observer, and not individual litigants, that matters.”
Justice Gorton said it was not necessary to decide whether this application was an abuse of process because it repeated an application that had already been dismissed “on essentially the same grounds”.
“The making of this application has consumed a day of court time.
“The time used was contributed to by the fact that, contrary to my orders, the application was made orally without Kuksal first having filed written submissions,” Justice Gorton said.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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