Melican, Peter

Peter has significant experience in acting for and advising many Commonwealth agencies on complex administrative law, information protection, regulatory and national security issues.

He is a member of AGS’s In-house Counsel team and has been briefed in proceedings in the Federal Court (including the Full Court), State Supreme Courts (including Courts of Appeal), the District Court, the Local Court and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), and he regularly appears led and unled in these jurisdictions.

His counsel practice has focused on information protection (including public interest immunity, legal professional privilege, Parliamentary privilege, the Harman obligation and statutory secrecy regimes), national security (including applications for control orders and defending security assessments), civil enforcement and statutory construction issues.

Recent experience

Peter appeared in the following matters:

• McCartney v EB; McCartney v EB (No 2); McCartney v Abdirahman-Khalif; Booth v Namoa; Booth v Namoa (No 2) (applications for control orders)
• R v Azari; R v Musleh; R v Taleb (No 3); R v WE & HG (No 11) (information protection applications)
• MYVC v Director-General of Security; TNFD v Director-General of Security; VYMF v Director-General of Security (reviews of adverse security assessment)
• DPP (Cth) v Galloway; R v Kinghorn (No 4) (legal professional privilege issues)
• Commonwealth v King; Commonwealth v Harrison (civil penalty proceedings).

Qualifications

Bachelor of Laws (Honours)/Bachelor of Arts, Australian National University, 2008