In Mokhtar & Bilgin [2026] FedCFamC2F 165, the father had commenced parenting proceedings in respect of a child born in 2014, and in respect of whom final parenting orders had been made on 9 May 2016 (“the 2016 Orders”).  There were no detailed Orders for time between the child and the father in the 2016 Orders and, at that time, the father was not living in Australia.  Notwithstanding that the child had spent no time with the father since the making of the 2016 Orders he now sought Orders for specific time and ancillary matters.  The circumstances around the making of the 2016 Orders are significant because there had been an Interim Order for supervised time and evidence of ongoing coercive and controlling behaviour on the part of the father. 

The mother not only opposes the father’s application but seeks Orders equating to no time and other restraints.  Strangely, given that the father had not brought proceedings since 2016, the mother also sought a Harmful Proceedings Order3.  The mother thereafter sought a review of a Senior Judicial Registrar’s (“SJR”) decision, of 15 September 2025, regarding the s65DAAA threshold.  That is, the father’s application was permitted to move forward and the mother disputed whether or not he had met the threshold issue. 

The mother thereafter became self-represented and purported to file a Review via email to the Court at 4.30:18pm on 6 October 2025.  She then filed an Amended Review application the following day.  The father disputed that the Review had been validly filed, the deadline for such filing being 21 days after the date of the SJR’s decision.  A further complicating factor was that there were some defects with the mother’s Review application, specifically it was missing the Notice to Respondent page, which the mother remedied with her Amended Review, filed after the 21 day period.  On 13 October 2025 the mother filed an Application in a Proceeding seeking to dispense with compliance of the rules in respect of that 21 day period. 

The matter came before a Division 2 Judge on 12 December 2025 and again on  
5 February 2026, essentially to determine whether the mother’s Review application had been filed in time and, if not whether she should be granted an extension of time, thereby making it a valid filing.  The mother was self-represented on the hearing of this issue, the father was represented by Counsel. 

In a nutshell, the issues were whether the father was prejudiced by the 18 second delay in the filing of the Review Application and/or whether the omission of the Notice to Respondent page was an irreparable defect. 

Her Honour, Judge Taglieri, made the following findings4: 

• The Application for Review emailed to the Registry at 4:30:18pm on 6 October 2025 is to be treated as validly filed; 

• I direct that the Application for Review be taken to have been filed on 6 October 2025; and 

• As the Application for Review is taken to have been filed on 6 October 2025, it was not filed outside of the 21 days required by Rule 14.05 of the Rules.  

Her Honour was quite critical of the father’s approach to the mother’s Application for Review and his counsel’s submissions in that regard, given the negligent impact upon the father of allowing that Application to run its course. 

However, in respect of the question as to whether or not the Application for Review should be heard and determined either with the mother’s application for a Harmful Proceedings Order or separately Her Honour remitted this for Case Management.  Her Honour found that what the mother actually sought was summary dismissal of the father’s application on the basis that it had no reasonable prospect of success, rather than a harmful proceedings order, but that this had been ignored, forgotten or overlooked5, and that the argument remained as to whether that issue ought to have been determined prior to the s65DAAA application.  This, of course, could not be determined by an SJR and would have to go before a Judge. 

Orders were made dispensing with the formal requirements for filing of the Application for Review, accepting that application as being filed within time and adjourning the matter for Case Management. 

Unfortunately, the penchant for appeals is not solely confined to self-represented litigants.   

Practitioners should not expend costs opposing technical filing arguments where the substantive impact on their client is negligible.