In a collective action for consumer relief, when does the Civil Procedure Act supply the rules of procedure?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
The practice file for this exercise would hold the permit decision granting the collective action, showing which procedure is running, and the papers each side filed, so a reader can compare the point in dispute against the special provisions the Consumer Framework Act does contain.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading treats the provision as a pure gap-filler: for a collective action, wherever this Act contains no special provision on the point in dispute, the Civil Procedure Act is applied, so ordinary civil rules are borrowed only where the consumer statute is silent.
Another reading stresses the order of precedence the words impose, since the Civil Procedure Act applies only where this Act has no special provision on the matter, so the file must first establish the silence before any borrowed rule can be reached.
Your judgment
How far may ordinary civil procedure be borrowed for matters that this Act addresses only indirectly, without stating them as rules of collective action procedure?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if a court decision sets out which provisions of the Consumer Framework Act count as special rules displacing the Civil Procedure Act, or if the Act is amended to add or remove such a provision.