BGP Explorer: Clive Palmer launches bid to disqualify judge
Clive Palmer has failed in an extraordinary bid to have a Supreme Court judge disqualified from hearing a $US16m legal fight, alleging judges across Australia have been secretly communicating about him.
Mr Palmer’s flagship company Mineralogy is in the Queensland Supreme Court to try and avoid paying a $US16m bill from Singapore company BGP Geoexplorer, over work the survey firm did for Mr Palmer in the Gulf of Papua in 2011.
But today, on what was supposed to be the final day of a two-day trial before Justice David Jackson in the Queensland Supreme Court, Mr Palmer filed an incendiary affidavit suggesting judges across Australia had discussed ongoing legal matters involving Mr Palmer.
Mr Palmer alleged there had been communication between a West Australian Supreme Court judge and Justice Jackson that the latter had not disclosed.
“He (Justice Jackson) has had the opportunity to do so and I find the failure to do so is a matter of great concern to me,” Mr Palmer said, in the affidavit which boasted he was a national living treasure and had been an adjunct professor of law at Deakin University.
Justice Jackson dismissed the application, saying the communications had not been kept secret by the WA judge and had not contained any “compromising” information.
“They are simply communications about what the relevant list of cases is in various courts or registries,” Justice Jackson said.
He said there was “no explanation” for Mr Palmer’s application being filed so late – more than one year after the WA judge disclosed the benign communications.
“There is no evidence which makes plausible that a bystander, or the hypothetical bystander, would have a reasonable apprehension of bias (of) this court hearing this case,” Justice Jackson said.
“I dismiss the application.”