Former parliamentary speaker Peter Slipper will take his challenge to the validity of charges against him to the ACT Supreme Court, after a magistrate ruled there had not yet been a violation of parliamentary privilege.
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Slipper, the former long-time Queensland Liberal MP turned independent speaker in the last Federal Parliament, was before the ACT Magistrates Court this week to answer three charges of dishonestly using Cabcharge cards.
His lawyer had argued the charges should be permanently stayed - effectively ending the prosecution against him - on the basis that they were a violation of parliamentary privilege.
Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker rejected the request, saying there was nothing yet before the court in relation to matters of parliamentary privilege and the application was premature and misconceived.
However, she granted a further adjournment in the case to allow Slipper and his legal team to make the same application to a higher court.
The application is expected to be lodged in the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday and Slipper's lawyers will ask for the hearing to be expedited.
The matter will initially go before the court’s registrar and, if it meets the requirements for an urgent hearing, could go before a judge this week.
Otherwise it will be docketed to a judge to be heard at a later date.
Commonwealth prosecutors allege the former federal parliamentarian used $1000 of the taxi vouchers to visit district restaurants and wineries.
During submissions over the stay application, prosecutor Lionel Robberds argued there was no evidence Slipper’s trips had been parliamentary business and questioned why he had used multiple cab charges and allegedly falsified the documents if they were.
Mr Robberds said the trip had to fall under the defendant’s political responsibilities for the travel to be regarded as parliamentary business.
He said that using part of the travel time to discuss or plan for parliament was insufficient.
“In order to travel on parliamentary business, at the very least the purpose of the travel must be for parliamentary business,” Mr Robberds said.
“The purpose of the travel on these three occasions was not for parliamentary business.”
But defence lawyer Kylie Weston-Scheuber said there were no comparable cases and the matter should be dealt with by parliament.
“What is effectively being criminalised here is activity that centres on parliamentary business,” Ms Weston-Scheuber said.
“It’s for that reason that the very essence of the case infringes on the concept of proceedings in parliament.”
She also disagreed with the prosecution’s definition regarding travelling for parliamentary business.
