Opinion: I challenged my COVID public health order fine, and won
who were illegally ticketed. I was reading alone in the park less than a kilometre from home. I looked up to see two police officers hovering over me, accusing me of breaking the law for not actively exercising.that day, I believed these officers. I figured maybe the order had changed – after all, it had been doing so every few days. This also seemed to be their job that day, so I thought they must have an idea of what they were doing.
So, I challenged the ticket in court. At my appearance, I requested the bodycam footage and the particulars of the offence. The court notice referred to sections 7-10 of the public health order without saying which one I allegedly breached. This vagueness is what the. The official rescheduled my appearance for two months later and ordered that the prosecutor serve me the footage and particulars.
It’s hard not to conclude that the system failed at every level. The police were not informed about the law they were enforcing. The state’s efficiency mechanism, the pre-trial review by Revenue NSW, showed it also misunderstood the law and had no interest in removing any burden from the courts. There was never any clarity about the offence, further raising the difficulty in defending oneself.
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