The Court of Appeal has struck down Labor Premier Chris Minns' post-Bondi anti-protest laws which enabled the NSW Police to extend protest restrictions, the Public Assembly Restriction Declarations (PARD). The challenge was brought by the Blak Caucus and Palestine Action Group.
A PARD was in place during the 9 February protest at Sydney Town Hall against Israeli President Isaac Herzog's visit to NSW where scenes of police violence went viral on social media. Community leaders are calling for the Police to be removed from involvement with any prosecutions related to the protest, and for the Director of Public Prosecutions to withdraw all current and planned prosecutions.
Greens MP, Solicitor and spokesperson for Justice Sue Higginson said:
"Premier Chris Minns has once again been pulled into line by the courts for inflicting unconstitutional laws on the people of NSW. These unconstitutional laws are the reason that Police felt empowered to commit violence against innocent people at Town Hall,
"This decision will upend the prosecutions of protestors who have been charged as a result of attending the protest. The Police must now extract themselves from this mess, they had no authority to issue the directions under these invalid laws, and any charges resulting from police activity at Town Hall need to be withdrawn,
"If these charges are not withdrawn immediately by Police, I am calling on the Director of Public Prosecutions to take over all prosecutions because it is crystal clear that NSW Police cannot run legally sound prosecutions of protestors in circumstances where their own officers were the perpetrators and they had no legal authority,
"Given this outcome, civil liability in the tens of millions is inevitable. People were harmed, their right to march to Parliament was unlawfully obstructed, and no doubt police were harmed too. Premier Chris Minns needs to take responsibility for this.
"Instead of progressing evidence-based reform to combat hate and antisemitism in the aftermath of the Bondi Massacre, the Premier chose to foist unrelated and absurdly anti-democratic anti-protest laws on the parliament knowing they would be declared invalid,
"This authoritarian approach to our democracy by Premier Minns has been repeated too often, at a certain point Labor needs to stop trying to subvert our constitution. If this trend of passing bad laws continues, with the community challenging their constitutionality later, NSW is at serious threat of descending to a very dark place," Ms Higginson said.
