Is the Court Registrar/Clerk immune to a suit for negligence?
<p>Suppose a Court Registrar/Clerk issues an enforcement instrument against a party to enforce a judgment debt, but the Court later rules that this instrument was invalidly issued (i.e., the Registrar/Clerk should not have issued it).  To be clear, this is not just a snafu in the paperwork --- for various technical legal reasons, the Court rules that this type of instrument cannot be validly issued against this party <em>at all</em> (even though it was, in fact, issued against them).  The applicant for that instrument relied on it, and suffers loss as a result of its invalidity.  (If the applicant had known it was invalid, he would have sought other enforcement methods in the meantime, but that opportunity has now been lost.)</p>

<p>Can the plaintiff sue the Court Registrar/Clerk (which issued the invalid instrument) for negligence, or on some other cause-of-action?  Does the Registrar/Clerk have any form of judicial immunity that would alter the standard position of a suit for negligence?  Also, in a negligence suit of this kind, would it be expected that the Court Registrar/Clerk has the duty of care to only issue valid instruments, or would it be expected that the <em>applicant</em> is the one that bears the onus of determining validity of the instrument issued at his request?</p>

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<p><strong>Jurisdiction of interest:</strong> Interested in any common-law jurisdiction, but mostly interested in Federal Court in Australia.</p>

<h2>Court Registrars, in the performance of their duties, have the same immunity from civil action as judges i.e. total immunity</h2>
<p>They cannot be sued: period. Even if they act corruptly or maliciously - although they can be criminally prosecuted for that.</p>

judicial-immunity