More Than 33,000 COVID-19 Fines Will Be Binned After The NSW Govt Agreed They Were Invalid

More than 33,000 COVID-19 fines will be cancelled in NSW after two test cases in the state’s Supreme Court. The legal challenge was brought by the Redfern Legal Centre, which repped three plaintiffs. Now, Revenue NSW made the call to cancel certain fines issued when the state had public health orders in place over lockdown. 9News reported that in court, the lawyer for the Commissioner of Fines Administration conceded the fines didn’t “sufficiently state or describe the offences in general terms”. They also didn’t identify the “offence-creating decision”. To put that in simpler terms, the fines in question were legally invalid because they didn’t describe what offence had taken place specifically enough. Lawyer Katherine Richardson

Brendan BeameThe Sydney Morning Herald

Plaintiff Teal Els was charged $3000 by police after she was sitting in a park with her sister after exercising. According to the ABC, Richardson said in court that Els didn’t know what exactly she was being fined for. She also said more than 160 people had copped the same fine.

“How can [Els] tell, for example, having no idea what offence she said to have committed with a penalty amount of $3000, which is obviously a very significant amount of money to be imposed by notice procedure,” she said.

The SMH

“Redfern Legal Centre has challenged penalty notices issued for contraventions of COVID-19 Public Health Orders on the technical basis that the notices do not provide a sufficiently detailed description of the offence committed and are therefore invalid,” said Revenue NSW’s statement.

“The Commissioner of Fines Administration is able to independently review or withdraw penalty notices.”

Dina Yehia

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