No decision yet by Queensland Supreme Court regarding ‘standing’ to initiate glaucoma action

The ‘standing’ claim is seen by observers as nothing more than a means of delaying the same court’s hearing of the action brought by ASO and RANZCO against the OBA’s decision early this year to change its guidelines from co-managent of glaucoma patients by ophthalmologists and optometrists to permitting optometrists to diagnose and treat glaucoma without any reference or involvent of ophthalmologists.By taking the ‘standing’ action, the OBA has succeeded in most likely ensuring the claim by ASO and RANZCO against the OBA will not be heard until next year as hearing times for this year have all been filled.ASO and RANZCO have taken the issue to court because of their public-health concerns, supported by the Australian Medical Association.’Standing’ is necessary to ensure that people bringing matters before the courts have some kind of interest in the outcome. Otherwise, if there were no restrictions on who could take legal action, it could be brought by, for instance, busybodies, or by someone who wanted nothing more than to annoy someone else.As an inent judge once put it: “The courts are not places for those who wish to meddle in things which are of no concern of theirs, just for the pleasure of interfering, or of proclaiming abroad some favoured doctrine of theirs, or of indulging a taste for forensic foreplay.”Accordingly, an action can only be brought by someone who has ‘standing’ – i.e. the entitlent to commence legal proceedings.The law relating to standing is complex and because it has developed in a relatively ad hoc manner, it is not entirely clear cut.