Clive Palmer accused of 'scandalising conduct' as second judge steps down from trial
Clive Palmer has succeeded in his bid to have a second supreme court judge step down from a three-month trial next year, when liquidators for his failed Queensland Nickel company will seek to recover millions of dollars owed to creditors.
However, as Justice David Jackson recused himself on Monday, he described Palmer’s claims that he may been negatively influenced against the former MP, or discussed the case with other judges, as “scandalising conduct”.
Palmer had asked the Queensland supreme court judge at an earlier hearing to recuse himself from the legal fight, alleging the judge might have made offensive comments about him to another court official.
Palmer said he was not sure if it was true but asked Jackson to step aside anyway.
Jackson ruled on Monday that he would step down. But he would continue to oversee proceedings until the case goes to trial in April, when another judge will step in.
Last week he suggested the businessman could be trying to get around limits on what lawyers can say in court, by representing himself.
Palmer has rejected that suggestion. “These are mostly matters of a scandalising tendency that should not have been raised, if there was no reasonable basis for them,” Jackson said in his judgment. “He is a wealthy man who has available to him any legal assistance he desires or could need.”
The ruling follows the recusal of Justice John Bond, who stepped down in September after a decision to freeze more than $200m of Palmer’s assets.
Liquidators for Palmer’s Queensland Nickel business will try to claw back hundreds of millions of dollars owed to creditors when the matter goes to trial in April.
Queensland Nickel’s Townsville refinery closed in 2016, leaving 800 workers out of their jobs.