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Ex-lawyer’s application to sue Qld government for $74bn dismissed
The Federal Court has dismissed an application from a former lawyer, convicted of domestic violence and stalking, who attempted to sue the state of Queensland for $74 billion on unlawful discrimination claims.
Lauren Croft
In May 2018, Adrian Praljak was due to appear in the Southport Magistrates Court in Queensland as a defendant in a domestic violence and unlawful stalking matter, during which he sent hundreds of texts and emails over the course of two years to a law student he had been dating for a matter of weeks.
In March 2018, he wrote an email to the Magistrates Court requesting that the matter be heard by telephone or a lower floor, as he suffered from vertigo and anxiety. The former solicitor claimed he had a “severe” fear of heights and asked to be placed in a ground-floor courtroom.
However, the Magistrates Court rejected this request, as the domestic violence team was located on a higher floor and that Mr Praljak had previously appeared on that floor with no issues. Mr Praljak then appeared in court in May and pleaded guilty to those charges.
Following this, Mr Praljak made a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) against the state of Queensland for breaches of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, which was later terminated by the AHRC in December 2021.
A few days later, Mr Praljak then sought leave in an application to the Federal Court, which alleged that after he was the subject of “multiple forms of unlawful discrimination” spanning across a number of years, his professional career as a solicitor was destroyed and he was wrongfully convicted of domestic violence and unlawful stalking – and that he pleaded guilty to these charges “under duress”.
Mr Praljak also submitted that his medical condition, acrophobia, and evidence of this was not taken into account by the magistrates in the hearing and that subsequently, he suffered from a more permanent form of acrophobia in early 2020, as well as increased anxiety and claustrophobia.
In his original email to the Magistrates Court, Mr Praljak provided reports from his treating clinical psychologist, which noted that he had a “severe phobia of heights, along with claustrophobia difficulties, and that he was unfit to engage in any situations where he was not situated on the ground floor of a building, or in confined spaces”, according to the judgment.
In his application to the court, Mr Praljak demanded an apology from the Queensland government, along with the restoration of his legal career, the charges against him to be dropped and financial compensation of “no less than $50,000,000,000 USD (approx. AU$74 billion) not including tax”.
The application was recently dismissed in the Federal Court by the Honourable Timothy James Francis McEvoy, who confirmed that Mr Praljak’s claim was “untenable” and ruled in favour of the State of Queensland, who sought to have the application for leave dismissed with costs.
In an affidavit submitted as part of his leave application to the court, Mr Praljak stated that his symptoms included “panic, dizziness, severe anxiety, severe deficits in attention and concentration, and executive function (i.e., thinking and problem solving) impairments” but that his application for special consideration was rejected.
He also alleged that Queensland Police made “serious errors” in charging him with domestic violence and unlawful stalking — and that he was actually the victim in the case.
“In the unlawful stalking case, I was not provided special consideration for my condition and not able to fairly defend myself. Further, the prosecutors [evidence] had a range of false information which IS NOT [sic] backed by any supportive evidence,” he wrote.
“… claims by the prosecutor were essentially unfalsifiable and therefore non-defendable as they attempted to have me prove my innocence, yet they did not provide evidence for their claims.”
However, in reviewing the accompanying documents to the affidavit, McEvoy J noted that “the material is largely irrelevant to the question of whether leave should be granted”.
The state of Queensland submitted that Mr Praljak’s application was “lacking in substance because the allegations relate to the exercise of administrative functions which would be covered by the doctrine of judicial immunity”, which McEvoy J ruled in favour of.
“I accept that in all the circumstances the decision of the coordinating magistrate not to allow the applicant to appear in a court room located on the ground floor of the courthouse (for reasons explained to the applicant prior to the hearing) falls wholly within the protection afforded to the magistrate pursuant to s 51 of the Magistrates Act and pursuant to the principle of judicial immunity at common law,” His Honour stated in the judgment.
“For that reason alone, leave must be refused.”
Lauren Croft
Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.
