Federal Court. Will the Court only grant a stay of Tribunal proceedings when its supervisory jurisdiction is involved, and where there are shown to be “exceptional circumstances”?
Some of the questions to the Federal Court (FCA) were as follows:
Question 1: Does the Court have an implied jurisdiction to grant a stay of Tribunal proceedings to protect the subject matter of litigation before it?
Question 2: Will the Court only grant a stay of Tribunal proceedings when its supervisory jurisdiction is involved, and where there are shown to be “exceptional circumstances”?
Question 3: For the Court to grant a stay of Tribunal proceedings, will a strong case need to be shown?
Question 4: For the Court to grant a stay of Tribunal proceedings, can it be said that "questions of convenience are relevant, but not, ... simply as the balance of convenience: the test is a test of necessity and is not satisfied simply by assessing the relative convenience and harm for one side and the other"?
Question 5: Is an error in the form of apprehended bias material by definition, and therefore jurisdictional?
The FCA answered those questions as follows: