Thousands of Covid-19 fines totaling millions of dollars might be ruled unlawful if two Sydney individuals win a historic test case before the New South Wales Supreme Court.
The couple claims that their infringement notices were issued in such unclear terms that they could not be adequately enforced and that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to challenge them before a magistrate.
If they are successful in their legal actions, it might set a precedent for the cancellation of a large portion of the more than 45,000 fines still owed for contravening public health orders related to Covid in NSW.
Since class actions are now feasible in NSW, similar lawsuits will undoubtedly also be filed in other states.
The remainder of Australia saw tens of thousands of fines handed out, with 19,000 in Victoria.
Redfern Legal Center is bringing the case against the NSW Police Commissioner and Commissioner of Fines Administration on behalf of Brenden Beame and Teal Els.
After the administrative law court case was started late last week, the $1,000 punishment issued on a third plaintiff, 30-year-old Rohan Pank, has already been withdrawn.
When it became known that millions of dollars in fines imposed around NSW may be reversed if the claims were proven true, the case was briefly mentioned in court on Tuesday.
Between March 2020 and this month, 62,029 Covid fines totaling $56,499,080 were imposed.
As of May, 47,560 fines totaling $42,269,700 were still owed.
Revenue NSW is now seeking that the majority of the penalty letters, which were issued during the height of Sydney’s lockdown in August and September, be enforced.
Thousands of those who received punishment asked for a review, and as a result, Revenue NSW has withdrawn 12.6% of the penalty notices.
The three plaintiffs, who were represented by Redfern Legal Centre, wanted a refund of any fines and future enforcement orders they had already paid out money for.
Four police officers approached Mr. Pank and his girlfriend as they were sitting on a hill at a park in August 2021, when Sydney was on lockdown.
They received a fine for their actions.
He was told by the police that he and his girlfriend had broken a public health order by not exercising aggressively when they were less than one mile from their home.
At the time, there was ambiguity surrounding terminology like “exercise or recreation,” and interpretations of public health regulations were frequently changing.
Days after Mr. Pank was fined, NSW Health decided that “sitting for leisure” qualified as outdoor activity.
According to Redfern Legal Center, he requested two reviews of his infringement notice, but Revenue NSW denied each request.
The agency initially claimed Mr. Pank had been advised by police not to leave his house without a valid reason.
The next allegation was that Mr. Pank violated a public health order by entering the City of Sydney from his home in the Inner West local government district.
A person could engage in outdoor recreation without restriction within 10 kilometers of their residence when Mr. Pank was seated in the park.
Public health orders altered 71 times between July and September of last year, sometimes twice in a single day, according to Samantha Lee, senior police accountability attorney at the Redfern Legal Centre.
Everyone was simply perplexed, she claimed.
“What we observed was this trend of people receiving fines that were not authorized by the law.”
‘Police were not correctly enforcing public health orders. We discovered that even Revenue NSW was applying the law incorrectly or not at all.
According to Ms. Lee, most people who break distance laws when exercising or engaging in recreational activities receive penalties; nevertheless, some people even receive fines for going grocery shopping.
Most of the time, she claimed, people weren’t breaking the law.
“The laws were applied incorrectly,”
The core of our argument is that these Covid fines aren’t actually fines since they don’t meet the legal criteria established by the Fines Act.
There were hundreds of paragraphs under ten public health standards, but the fines did not state which particular paragraphs were allegedly violated.
Mr. Pank disregarded the directives’ Sections 7, 8, and 9 stipulations.
Ms. Lee claims that Covid fines were levied in cases of strict responsibility when there was no requirement for proof of purpose, such as when parking in a no-stopping zone.
She said that while deciding whether or not someone had an excuse, the police had to exercise a lot of discretion.
The researchers concluded, “We found that the review system and the police system was actually doing everything wrong and was not delivering justice to folks on the ground.
The infringement notifications, in Ms. Lee’s opinion, did not actually state what was allegedly done incorrectly.
It doesn’t tell you what offense you’ve committed, she argued.
The gathering fine, for instance, merely specifies that you have gathered.
It is impossible to attempt to contest the ruling since you are unsure of the proof the police will need to submit in court and because it is unclear what you broke.
We believe that the reason there were so many issued was because they were so simple to issue due to their ambiguity.
People living in low-income areas received a disproportionately large number of fines at the height of the lockdowns.
According to Ms. Lee, since fines are not means tested, they punish people more harshly for the same violation if they have a lower income.
Between July 2020 and October of the previous year, Mount Druitt residents were hit with 1,536 fines totaling $1,366,380; 1,291 of those fines were assessed at Liverpool and 25 ($24,000) at Waverley.
Ms. Lee claims that there are more police officers tasked with keeping an eye on the suburbs where the majority of fines are handed out, and some of those suburbs have stricter legislation in place.
She does, however, think that the third issue is that because they had to leave for work, those people were more active.
Many of them couldn’t do their jobs from home.
Revenue NSW sent a letter to Mr. Pank on July 15 but it was unclear why his fine had been reduced after a third evaluation.
The organization said that it had “re-examined your request of Fine 4066740792 for “Fail to comply with noticed direction in reference to section 7/8/9 – COVID-19 – Individual” on August 7, 2021.”
We carefully considered the fine and reexamined it using our Review Guidelines before deciding to nullify it.
According to Ms. Lee, it is not just a coincidence that Mr. Pank’s fine was decreased after his court filings were filed.
“In my view, the fine imposed on Mr. Pank should have been immediately overturned and never issued.
“The cops erred first, then Revenue.
Ms. Lee urges anybody who has received a fine for such infractions to come forward and ask for legal representation and a review of their fine.
The case will be brought back before the judge on August 26 for more instructions and a hearing on November 29.
A hearing will be held to decide who would cover Mr. Pank’s fees after it was dropped.