Discovery
AKW22 is an Indian gentleman who was removed from Australia under the Migration Act. It seems he was unhappy with that arrangement and applied for a writ of habeas corpus.
After an excursion in the Federal Court, the habeas application has now come before Justice Craig Bydder, a recently appointed judge of the WA Supremes.
The applicant’s barrister is Dr John Cameron, the same John Cameron who in 2017 sparked the citizenship crisis for a raft of MPs and Senators.
Justice Bydder beavered away in his chambers researching habeas corpus and discovered judgments relating to the same applicant from a single Federal judge (Colvin) and an appeal bench (Rares, O’Sullivan and Feutrill).
On August 13, 2023, Banks-Smith J also rejected a last-minute interlocutory application for habeas corpus after which AWW22 was promptly removed to Chennai.
AKW22 was unsuccessful in his Federal Court applications because he had failed to discharge the evidentiary onus for habeas corpus.
The action then moved to the WA Supreme Court, where at an initial hearing before Bydder, the Federal Court cases were raised.
Cameron then filed a motion for the judge’s recusal. He also invited him to decline to hear the matter, even if he was satisfied that there was no reasonable apprehension of bias.
Bydder said the omission to raise the Full Court and the Banks-Smith decisions before him, “raised a question about whether counsel for the applicant had complied with his duties to this court”.
Cameron submitted that Bydder acted in excess of his jurisdiction by undertaking inquiries into the plaintiff’s conduct in the Federal Court matters.
Also, he claimed that Bydder misconstrued evidence as a consequence of those inquiries in a manner adverse to the plaintiff.
He also contended that the correct time for researching the state of the law would be after the return of the writ, not while it was still an application.
In agonising detail, Justice Bydder didn’t think the fair-minded lay observer would be bothered by his in-chambers research and refused the application and the invitation.
He said his investigations were in conformity with ordinary judicial practice, and that left to the cases cited by Dr Cameron, the court would have been unaware of the Federal Court matters, “which may raise questions of abuse of process, res judicata or issue estoppel affecting the procedure adopted to determine habeas corpus applications before this court”.
“This is a very serious matter … I am very concerned.”
John Cameron told the judge:
“I’m concerned that your Honour is concerned …”
Bydder will continue to hear the habeas corpus application, where res judicata, issue estoppel or abuse of process will all come out in the wash.
No doubt the fact that AWK22 is currently at large in India, although in his submission he says he is “constructively detained”, will also form part of his consideration.
Should the writ be issued and the applicant voluntarily return to Australia, then he would probably be placed in immigration detention pending the hearing.
Plenty to chew upon.
Order of the Golden Jackboot
It grieves me to once again mention Judge Allyson Ladhams, a prominent WA Federal Circuiteer.
Mr Mohamed Mohamed’s resident return visa was cancelled after it was found he had given incorrect information on an incoming passenger card.
The AAT upheld the decision, and the appeal landed before Judge Ladhams on February 14, 2025
Sixteen months later, she coughed up a judgment which upheld Mr Mohamed’s application.
This kept the poor fellow dangling for a long time when it should not have been an arduous decision – particularly as he was represented by competent and experienced migration specialists, who readily identified the tribunal’s jurisdictional error.
Judge Ladhams is no Speedy Gonzales. This is her fourth entry in the Order of the Jackboot.
In this report from May 2026, we found a delay of three times the permitted judgment deadline in a fair work case involving the South of Perth Yacht Club.
There was a delay of 22 months in her decision about an industrial adverse action dispute, and 17 months to cross the finishing line in another employment law case.
She came from the AGS and was appointed to the Circuit Court by Madam Cash in August 2012.