A man with an “insatiable appetite for litigation” has been asked by the Federal Court to demonstrate why he should not be declared a vexatious litigant.
Trevor Kingsley Ferdinands has initiated numerous proceedings since his dismissal from South Australia Police in 2001 as a result of assault convictions that year and in 1999.
In a Federal Court judgment published on Wednesday, Judges Cheeseman, Goodman and McEvoy dismissed two appeals against decisions which related to refusals by court registrars to accept documents for filing from Mr Ferdinands in 2022 and 2023.
“Over many years, Mr Ferdinands has pursued claims in a variety of fora seeking to agitate his grievances arising out of, and in relation to, these events. In his submissions, written and oral, he stridently asserts that he was the victim of racially motivated and corruptly fabricated charges,” the judges from the South Australian registry said.
“Mr Ferdinands has instituted many, many proceedings in many different courts and tribunals. He appears to have exhausted all avenues of appeal in relation to his convictions and the termination of his employment in 2001. Yet he persists.”
They said they were satisfied each registrar acted properly in the exercise of administrative power under Rule 2.26 of the Federal Court Rules 2011, and that each of the primary judges was correct to dismiss Mr Ferdinands’ application for judicial review of each registrar’s decision.
In the course of considering the appeal materials filed by Mr Ferdinands, the judges decided the court should, of its own initiative, institute a process for making a vexatious proceedings order against him, under Section 37AO(2)(b) of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth).
“An overarching and relevant feature of the present appeals is that Mr Ferdinands is a repeat and frequent litigant in this court and in other courts and tribunals,” they said.
“His appetite for commencing and pursuing litigation is properly described as insatiable.”
The judges said in relation to one Notice of Appeal submitted by Mr Ferdinands, it was “instructive to extract the grounds as written in their entirety, as to attempt to paraphrase or summarise the grounds is apt to detract from the prolixity, excess and incoherence with which the grounds are replete”.
They said the grounds of appeal, and submissions made in support of them, “heave with scandalous allegations about matters of serious importance”.
“He makes these allegations wantonly without any substantive attempt to articulate a reasonable basis to justify making such serious allegations,” they said.
“The submissions made in support of these grounds are expressed in language that is intemperate, repetitive, and pejorative.
“The allegations as made could not have been advanced by any responsible legal representative consistently with the professional obligations owed to the Court.”
The judges said the grounds “may be broadly disposed of on the basis that Mr Ferdinands fundamentally and persistently misapprehends the nature of the decision-making process and the confines of this appeal”.
The judges pointed out that in relation to the other appeal, Mr Ferdinands sought relief including an order that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese provide full discovery and disclosure of all fact and circumstances of Mr Ferdinands’ 1999 prosecution; as well as a claim in the nature of a class action for “$28.0 Billion dollars”.
They also pointed out that progress of the appeal was delayed by about 11 months pending the determination of two consecutive applications to the High Court by Mr Ferdinands.
They said they were compelled to consider whether a vexatious proceedings order was necessary.
“In some of his early cases, Mr Ferdinands enjoyed transient episodes of success, but in the majority of his cases, his claims have been dismissed, often attracting the epitaphs that the claims were without merit, frivolous, vexatious, doomed to fail and or an abuse of process,” the judges said.
“In the proceedings he has instituted Mr Ferdinands regularly makes claims that legislation is unconstitutional, and he seeks remedies that have been held to be beyond the jurisdiction of the court in which he sought to press the claims.
“Mr Ferdinands continues to be pertinacious in the face of the repeated rejection of his claims in case after case.”
They said that it appeared “his almost singular goal has been to challenge his military conviction in 1999 and his civilian conviction in 2001 which he maintains were both entered as a result of conspiracy, incompetence, corruption and fraud”.
They said Mr Ferdinands would be given an opportunity to make submissions as to why an order ought not be made against him.
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