A DOG owner has been hit with a $9000 legal bill after his appeal against paying a $22.50 council registration fee was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Victoria.
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Wodonga retiree Jeffrey Sill took his council to the Supreme Court after a magistrate in 2015 fined him $289 and ordered him to pay costs of $114.80 for failing to register his corgi Eckles.
The former builder argued before Justice Tim Ginnane in Melbourne on Friday he should be granted an extension of time to appeal the decision in the Supreme Court.
Mr Sill, who represented himself, spent 50 minutes arguing the Supreme Court and its judges were invalid, the Victorian governor was illegitimate and local government was unconstitutional.
“This is an administrative court and the only way I can be judged is in a common law court,” he said.
Mr Sill said the 1975 Victorian constitution had not been subject to royal assent and was invalid and the Victorian governor had not been lawfully appointed.
“She is supposed to be appointed by the Queen but she hasn’t been,” he said.
At one point Mr Sill said “this is in fact a star chamber” before claiming local government was “unlawful” because it had not been recognised in referendums in 1974 and 1988.
Justice Ginnane found there was “no merits” in the arguments of Mr Sill.
He said the Supreme Court of Victoria had been in existence since 1852 when it was enacted by parliament and the 1975 constitution was a re-enactment of an existing act.
“In my opinion this court should find the Constitution Act is valid,” Justice Ginnane said after citing relevant High Court decisions.
He said there was no basis for doubting the validity of the governor’s appointment and noted local government began in the 19th century in Victoria and animal legislation emerged in the state in the 1890s.
Wodonga Council’s barrister Basil Stafford applied for Mr Sill to pay the city’s legal costs of $9000 – a figure he said “in my respectful submission is modest”.
Justice Ginnane said it was appropriate Mr Sill pay costs, noting the council had gone through the magistrates, County and Supreme courts.
If Mr Sill does not pay, the figure may rise if the matter has to go to a costs court.
Mr Sill plans to take the case to the High Court.
Eckles was holidaying in Bendigo on Friday as the court case unfolded in a room inside the Little Bourke Street building which housed the High Court before it moved to Canberra in 1980.
