Parramatta councillor Benjamin Barrak loses bid for appeal
A rebel Parramatta councillor has attempted to take the council to the High Court of Australia in an effort to stop what he claimed to be “further abuses of power”. Find out what happened.
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Rebel Parramatta councillor Benjamin Barrak has lost his bid to appeal against the council in the High Court of Australia.
The Dundas ward councillor wanted to take the council to the highest court after he partially won an appeal in the Supreme Court in September seven months after he was evicted from meetings for refusing to apologise for calling then Lord Mayor Andrew Wilson a clown.
Cr Barrak called Cr Wilson a clown in February 2019 and abruptly left with confidential papers in relation to the sacking of CEO Mark Stapleton.
He launched legal action in April and lost in the Land and Environment Court but later won an appeal in the Supreme Court.
In its ruling, the court found Cr Barrak was offensive in calling the mayor a clown but ruled in his favour when it found the council was unlawful to expel him from meetings.
Cr Barrak apologised to Cr Wilson for calling him a clown.
However, despite Cr Barrak saying the Supreme Court decision to find the council unlawful for evicting him was a good result for justice, he lodged an appeal with the High Court.
But his special leave application with the High Court was not granted and therefore the matter was not heard.
On February 12, court papers stated his application “enjoys insufficient prospects of success and does not engage the interests of the administration of justice”.
Cr Barrak said he wanted the High Court to implement a “regime” that would stop such unlawful conduct, such as the evictions, from being repeated.
“I was seeking for a regime to be put in place to stop a majority of the chamber from being able to gang up to achieve political outcomes based upon matters which the court found to be unlawful, and yet to have no direct consequences for their behaviour,’’ he said.
Cr Barrak, who is a lawyer and paid for his legal fees, said the council had
engaged expensive lawyers to defend its conduct.
“I believe that under no circumstances should the chamber be allowed to incur significant legal costs to defend actions that the court found to be unlawful, and yet there are no consequences flowing to the very same councillors who committed the unlawful conduct,’’ he said.
“I wanted the High Court to put a stop to this.”
Cr Barrak said the result he wanted “for good governance of local government in Australia could not be dealt with”.
“Unfortunately, this leaves the possibility of further abuses of power without consequences to those doing it, even if their conduct is unlawful.”
A Parramatta Council spokesman would not disclose how much ratepayers’ money was spent on legal fees.
“As the matter is yet to be finalised, this information remains confidential and council is unable to provide this information,’’ he said.