Victorian legal practitioner Peter John Mericka has been removed from the roll of people following a case brought to the Supreme Court by the Victorian Legal Services Board.

The Supreme Court heard that Mr Mericka had conducted an unlicensed real estate business, providing services for which a real estate agent’s licence was required.

Judge Harris heard from the Board that Mr Mericka did not contest the application to be removed. The Board submitted that Mr Mericka had published material of an “unfounded, scandalous and vexatious nature” about thwe former Director of Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner and Judges of the Court.

The Court was told that unfounded allegations were made about Justice Sifris, former Chief Justice Marilyn Warren, the former General Counsel and former Director, of Consumer Affairs Victoria (Dr Claire Noone), the Law Institute of Victoria, the Victorian Legal Services Board and several of its staff.

Mr Mericka was said to have commented that these people were corrupt, guilty of criminal conduct and other improper conduct. Judge Harris granted the Board’s application, which contended that Mr Mericka was not a fit and proper person to be a lawyer, and was likely to remain unfit indefinitely.

Mr Mericka did not contest the Board’s application, and did not appear at the hearing. Mr Mericka had earlier written to the Chief Justice, and said that he would not content the application, and requested that his name be removed from the roll. Mr Mericka said this move was in protest against the “ongoing corruption [he had] experienced at the hands of various officers of the Victorian Justice System”.

“I stand by each and every complaint and allegation I have made in these documents,” Mr Merika said.

Mr Merika said he had “lost faith and confidence in the judicial system of Victoria”.

Judge Harris heard that Mr Mericka was admitted to practise as a lawyer in November 1992. In 2014, Mr Mericka pleaded guilty to two charges of preofessional misconduct at common law. He had been reprimanded, and ordered to pay costs. Mr Mericka was then found to have used “discourteous, intemperate and vituperative language” in addressing the Chief Justice.

“The power to remove a practitioner’s name from the Roll is, as with with other disciplinary powers, a power od a protective rather than punitive nature,” Judge Harris said. “It is directed to the protection of the public and also, importantly, in this case, to the protection of the legal profession, the courts, the justice system and community confidence in that system,” judge Harris said in the January 2024 determination.

Of Mr Mericka, Judge Harris said: “The manner in which raised the allegations demonstrates an absence of knbowledge of fundamental aspects essential to legal practice as well as a lack of moral integrity.”