Following an extraordinary Supreme Court hearing, thousands of COVID fines imposed by the New South Wales Police and government may be declared unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court demanded that the New South Wales government cancel the remaining over 29,000 COVID-19 fines after finding that the penalties issued failed to accurately describe an offense.
The court determined that the fines imposed on those who disobeyed lockdown orders or social segregation measures were invalid because they did not meet the legal requirements for a fine or penalty notice.
The court determined that in each case, the “short description identifying the offence was insufficient to meet the requirements of the Fines Act (s20).”
The penalty notice “did not correctly identify even one element of the offense, let alone the offence itself,”
The Supreme Court ruled that the conduct, regulation, or legislation that was purportedly broken must be specifically mentioned on the fine in order for it to be considered genuine.
The historic decision was reached following a Supreme Court trial in which two plaintiffs contested the legality of the $1000 and $3000 fines, respectively.
The choice was made when the government of New South Wales withdrew nearly $30 million in COIVD fines last year.
Despite the results of the individual trials, the state government stated that they would not cancel the fines.
