BOMBSHELL: Queensland Supreme Court Declares Mandatory COVID Vaccination 'Unlawful' (Read Ruling)
Dozens of police and health workers win legal battle.
In a victory for human rights, a 115-page decision was handed down Tuesday by Queensland Supreme Court Justice Glenn Martin declaring police commissioner Katarina Carroll’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate “unlawful.”
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A group of 86 parties opposing vaccinations had taken the state government to the Supreme Court to challenge vaccination directives given to workers issued in 2021 and 2022.
The group includes dozens of Queensland Police Service (QPS) and Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) staff who refused to comply with the directives.
They challenged the legality of the mandates on several grounds of the Judicial Review Act (JRA) and the Human Rights Act (HRA).
Carroll’s December 2021 vaccine mandate was declared unlawful under the HRA.
The court determined that the mandates limited the human rights of workers because they were required to undergo a medical procedure without full consent.
Justice Martin ruled that the directives breached section 58 of the HRA, which states that public service employees must give proper consideration to human rights before making a decision and must act and make decisions in accordance with those human rights.
The police commissioner has been banned from taking any steps to enforce the direction.
Martin also found the director-general of the Department of Health, Dr. John Wakefield, could not prove he had the power to order the mandate.
The direction was found to be of no effect and had “no force.”
The judge also ordered the director-general of Queensland Health, Michael Walsh, to be restrained from any enforcement of the vaccine direction, and that no disciplinary proceedings could be taken against those applicants.
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The Nurses’ Professional Association of Queensland (NPAQ) said the Supreme Court’s decision “highlighted how Queensland Health has violated thousands of healthcare workers’ rights.”
A spokeswoman for the group emphasized how health workers were sidelined during the pandemic due to the vaccine mandate.
“We have nurses and midwives sitting at home during a workforce crisis and the healthcare system’s unlawful decisions are directly to blame,” she said. “NPAQ is currently liaising with our legal team to explore legal avenues for our members in light of today’s Supreme Court outcome.”
A lawyer for some of the Queensland police staff, Justin Sibley, said outside the court that the ruling was an “excellent outcome.”
He reminded reporters that “[a] lot of police have been terminated because they defied these so-called mandates.”
“The fact that they were terminated even though this outcome was waiting is a pretty sad indictment,” Sibley said, adding that there was “a lot of rebuilding to be done.”
“There’s a number of decisions that are obviously waiting in the queue to see what’s going to happen with this one, so we’ll wait and see what the outcomes of those are going to be.”
Lawyer Sam Iskander explained some of the police officers, ambulance staff, and healthcare workers he represents “refused” to take the vaccines due to health concerns and religious reasons.
“Thankfully, the court has seen that those mandates directions that were imposed were unlawful,” he said. “Some of them have been facing disciplinary proceedings, and hopefully now we'll see an end to all of that.”
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You can read the ruling below: