High Court. Does functus officio address the capacity, or authority, to adjudicate a matter, whereas estoppel addresses the capacity of the litigants to litigate a matter?
Some of the questions to the High Court (HCA) were as follows:
Question 1: Does functus officio address the capacity, or authority, to adjudicate a matter, whereas estoppel addresses the capacity of the litigants to litigate a matter?
Question 2: Can it be said that functus officio, instead of a legal doctrine or theory, simply "describes a conclusion [about] the legal authority of a person" to the effect that "an exercise of power, or a performance of a function or duty, is complete and the person has no power left to exercise, or no function or duty left to perform"?
Question 3: Can it be said that a conclusion that a body is functus officio can only be "reached by close examination of the particular circumstances, and the nature of the power, function or duty in question", regardless of "whether a public or private power or duty is exercised or performed and, in cases of public power, regardless of whether a court or other body exercises that power or performs that duty"?
The HCA answered those questions as follows: