Background
Jordan Huang owned a top-floor lot at The Dorchester community titles scheme, with exclusive use of a rooftop common-property area. Before 2000, he built an enclosed bathroom annex there without approval; the body corporate later approved it. Engineering reports obtained in 2020 and 2022 identified serious corrosion and water-ingress concerns involving ventilation and other utility infrastructure beneath the annex, and recommended its removal to permit repairs and future access.
In March 2022, the body corporate rescinded its earlier approval. Mr Huang challenged that resolution before a statutory adjudicator, alleging the body corporate had not acted reasonably under s 94(2) of the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld). The adjudicator dismissed the application, finding the resolution reasonably open. QCAT’s appeal tribunal then dismissed Mr Huang’s appeal on a question of law. He sought leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal, arguing that the adjudicator had unlawfully failed to consider his property rights under the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld).
The Court’s Holding
The Court granted leave because the appeal raised an issue of general importance, but dismissed the appeal. It held that the adjudicator was a “tribunal” exercising judicial power, rather than a public entity acting administratively, when deciding the parties’ statutory dispute. The adjudicator therefore was excluded from the public-entity obligations in s 58 of the Human Rights Act. The Court also held that the adjudicator’s decision was not an act or decision “of a private nature,” correcting QCAT’s contrary reasoning.
The Court further held that s 5(2)(a) of the Human Rights Act does not impose a free-standing duty on courts and tribunals, when acting judicially, to apply every Part 2 human right in every case. Courts and tribunals must perform the particular functions assigned by the Act, including human-rights-compatible statutory interpretation where relevant. Because Mr Huang had not raised a property-rights argument before the adjudicator and no statutory interpretation issue arose, the adjudicator was not required to directly apply s 24’s protection against arbitrary deprivation of property.
Key Takeaways
- A BCCM adjudicator deciding a dispute is a tribunal exercising judicial power, not a public entity subject to s 58 of the Human Rights Act.
- The private character of the underlying dispute does not make the adjudicator’s statutory decision private in nature.
- Section 5(2)(a) does not require courts and tribunals to independently consider all human rights in ordinary civil adjudication.
Why It Matters
The decision draws an important boundary in Queensland’s human-rights framework: public-entity obligations do not generally govern judicial adjudication, even where the decision-maker is a public-service employee. Human-rights issues in civil proceedings remain relevant where properly raised or where statutory interpretation engages them, but the Act does not convert every civil dispute into a free-standing human-rights inquiry.