Thousands of COVID fines issued by the New South Wales Police and government could be invalid following an unprecedented Supreme Court trial.
The Supreme Court has urged the New South Wales government to withdraw over 29,000 remaining COVID-19 fines, after deciding that the fines issued didn’t properly identify an offence.
The court found that the fines issued to people not complying with lockdown orders or social distancing measures weren’t specific enough to be considered valid fines, as they did not adhere to the legal definition of a fine or penalty notice.
“The short description identifying the offence was, in each case, insufficient to meet the requirements of the Fines Act (s20),” the court decided.
“The penalty notice not only failed to identify the offence, it did not correctly identify a single element of the offence.”
For a fine to be valid, the offence must be clearly stated on the fine, and make reference to the specific act, policy or law that was allegedly broken, according to the Supreme Court ruling.
The unprecedented finding came out of a Supreme Court trial, where two plaintiffs were questioning the validity of the $1000 and $3000 fines respectively.
The decision comes after the New South Wales government withdrew over $30 million with of COIVD fines last year.
The state government said that they will not withdraw the fines despite the individual trial’s outcome.