Source: Brownstone.org
Covid vaccine mandates enforced on Queensland police and ambulance workers have been declared ‘unlawful’ in a landmark Supreme Court ruling.
Justice Glenn Martin found the Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll’s direction for mandatory Covid vaccination, issued in December 2021, to be unlawful under the Human Rights Act.
A similar Covid vaccination order issued by the Director-General of Queensland Health at the time, John Wakefield, was determined to be “of no effect,” with enforcement of both mandates and any related disciplinary actions to be banned.
In his decision handed down on Tuesday 27 February, Justice Martin held that the Police Commissioner “did not consider the human rights ramifications” before issuing the Covid workplace vaccination directive within the Queensland Police Service (QPS).
While the Covid vaccination directive to Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) workers was found to be lawful, Justice Martin said that the Director-General had failed to “establish that the direction he made is a term of employment of the applicants.”
Justice Martin chastised the Commissioner and the Director-General for their inflexibility in the implementation of vaccination directives and suggested that their actions were not properly supported by the evidence.
“Neither the Commissioner nor Dr Wakefield gave close attention to the possible range of solutions. Each was presented with a proposal for mandatory vaccination with little in the way of well-developed critiques of alternative means of reducing illness and infection,” stated Justice Martin in the decision.
Moreover, justifications offered by the Commissioner and the Director-General for the workplace vaccination mandates, were “taken out of context” or “not supported by the evidence,” while modelling relied upon by the Commissioner was in fact “nothing of the sort,” said Justice Martin….