Minister Shane Rattenbury and a group of Greens members have lost a bid to shut down a defamation action over a failed attempt to expel environmental lobbyist Geoff Lazarus from the party.
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Associate Justice David Mossop heard and then threw out an application to stop the ACT Supreme Court case on Thursday.
Mr Lazarus alleges the Territory and Municipal Services Minister, his chief-of-staff and 2016 ACT election candidate Indra Esguerra, former Assembly member Amanda Bresnan, and former advisor Maiy Azize defamed him in party circles in March last year. Former party convenor Simon Copland is also named as a defendant.
Court documents said Mr Lazarus had faced expulsion for bringing the party into disrepute, including for leaking internal party finances, strategy documents and polling results to the media and individuals as far back as 2009. A party motion accused Mr Lazarus of leaking at the time of Lin Hatfield-Dodds' Senate candidacy in 2010, ahead of the 2013 election and seriously damaging the Greens' 2012 ACT election bid.
The motion said a former Victorian Greens official had warned the ACT party that Mr Lazarus "had ignored directives on the distribution of materials in the 2007 Victorian Senate campaign" when his membership was transferred.
Mr Lazarus, who joined the party in 2001 and founded Climate Active Australia, would not comment on Thursday.
His affidavit said the defeated moves to expel him were retribution for raising concerns about the official reporting and spending of party donations.
He argued people present at a party meeting were influential to his career and the expulsion vote had caused him anxiety, back pain, chest pain and heart palpitations. The moves against him had made a planned tilt for the Legislative Assembly impossible and were "very humiliating, distressful and hurtful."
The court heard Mr Lazarus alleged information was put before a March 2014 party meeting which contained imputations that in 2009 he had improperly disclosed internal information to journalists from the ABC and Fairfax Media, owner of The Canberra Times.
The court heard the defendants had not yet filed a defence.
Greg Stretton, barrister for the Greens quartet, on Thursday argued the case should be dismissed as it was an abuse of process, was unlikely to succeed, and breached the proportionality principle, as the costs to run the case far exceeded the damages that could be won.
The court heard the case would cost both parties more than $550,000 to contest and take up at least two weeks of court time.
Mr Stretton said the Greens group had a strong defence, which would include consent, honest opinion, and qualified privilege as the alleged defamation had occurred in the context of a disciplinary proceeding.
Associate Justice Mossop dismissed the case, saying it did not constitute an abuse of process. He admitted the defence appeared strong, but said the case was not so hopeless or weak as to warrant a stay of proceedings.
The associate judge also found the disproportion between the cost to defend and any remedy was more a poor reflection on the legal system than a reason to shut down the case.
A spokeswoman for Mr Rattenbury's office, speaking on behalf of all the defendants, said none would discuss the case this week.
"We are vigorously defending the allegations," Mr Rattenbury said in a statement. "As the matter is currently before the court, I am not able to comment further."
