The New South Wales government is signalling it will not withdraw any additional Covid fines despite a supreme court decision finding a huge volume of pandemic-related infringements were unlawful.
The state government was last year forced to withdraw more than 33,000 Covid fines after a NSW supreme court test case, lodged by Redfern Legal Centre (RLC), raised serious concerns about their lawfulness.
In an April judgment, the court later confirmed Covid fines had been issued unlawfully because they were too vague in nature and had not properly specified the offence that was alleged to have been committed.
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The development comes as the Redfern Legal Centre and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) lodged a formal complaint to the police watchdog about their enforcement of Covid fines.
The two community legal services have asked the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) to investigate the way police enforced Covid fines, which they described as “heavy-handed”.