Cross-vested jurisdiction

Civil proceedings can be transferred between the Supreme Court and the Land and Environment Court (see s 149B of the Civil Procedure Act 2005).  If proceedings commenced in the Supreme Court are transferred to the Land and Environment Court, the Land and Environment Court has, and may exercise, all of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in relation the proceedings (see s 149E of the Civil Procedure Act 2005).

The transferred proceedings are allocated to Class 4 of the Court’s jurisdiction (see s 20(1)(cj) of the Land and Environment Court Act 1979).

The practice and procedure for preparing for, and conducting, the hearing of the transferred proceedings will be the same as for other Class 4 proceedings.  This is explained in the Practice Note – Class 4 Proceedings (DOC , 1019.0 KB) and the section on the Court’s website on the types of cases on Class 4: judicial review and civil enforcement.

For criminal proceedings in Classes 5-7, the Supreme Court also has the power to transfer any proceedings commenced or purporting to have been commenced in the Supreme Court to the Land and Environment Court if the Supreme Court is of the opinion that the proceedings could or should have been commenced in the Land and Environment Court ( s 72 of the Land and Environment Court Act).