Dechlan Brennan reports in The Diplomat
A report recently released by the University of New South Wales’ Center for Crime, Law and Justice argues that the New South Wales (NSW) government’s “law and order” response to the COVID-19 pandemic led to significant fines debt – often in low socio-economic and Indigenous communities – and damaged community-police relations.
The report comes in the wake of the NSW government withdrawing over 33,000 COVID-19 fines after a Supreme Court hearing. The case was originally brought by the Sydney-based Redfern Legal Centre on behalf of Brendan Beame, Teal Els, and Rohan Pank, and was the spark for the mass invalidation and refunding of fines.
In a statement, Redfern Legal Centre noted that “Revenue NSW withdrew one of the fines [Rohan Pank] soon after we filed the case.”
“On 29th November 2022 the remaining two cases were due to be heard. The day before the hearing, the government conceded or agreed that the two plaintiff’s fines were invalid.”
The case focused on the technical argument that the fine notices did not provide a sufficiently detailed description of the offense that was supposedly committed. This would render them void.
Read the full article here (14 December 2022).
