MENZ ISSUES

MENZ Issues: news and discussion about New Zealand men, fathers, family law, divorce, courts, protests, gender politics, and male health.

Class Action against State Government

Filed under: General — amfortas @ 4:55 pm Sun 14th March 2010

Violence law faces challenge
by GILL VOWLES
March 14, 2010 08:50am

A TASMANIAN group has filed a $200 million class action against Premier David Bartlett and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

It is believed to be the first Australian class action against a law.

JAIL (Juries Against Illegal Laws) filed papers with the Federal Court of Australia on February 4 claiming that the Family Violence Act 2004 (Tasmania) was invalid.

The group is claiming $200 million in damages under Section 46 of the Australian Human Rights Commission Act.

JAIL is also seeking an additional $200,000 in damages for unlawful assault, trespass, negligence, conspiracy to cause economic loss, intimidation and defamation.

The writ further seeks an order that the Tasmanian Government and DPP Tim Ellis cease to engage in arresting people without proper evidence or procedures, giving police judicial powers, denying people the right to a fair and proper hearing and usurping the proper role of the courts.

JAIL president Ray Escobar said that if the class action was successful the money would be given to all the Tasmanians who had suffered under the Family Violence Act.

JAIL, formed in early 2008, now has more than 200 members around Tasmania who have been, or are related to, victims of false applications for violence orders.

Mr Escobar said JAIL was being represented by one of the finest legal minds in Australia, Sir John Walsh of Brannagh, who lives on Norfolk Island.

Sir John said he agreed to represent JAIL because the case raised important and fundamental questions of human rights, such as the presumption of innocence, right to a fair trial and the separation of powers.

“The legislation, and the way it is enforced, is contrary to human rights and to international law as accepted by Australia,” Sir John said.

“The legislation conflicts with the Constitution of Australia and with the fundamental rights of all Australians.”
Sir John said he was confident a federal judge would apply the law of the Commonwealth and the fundamental principles of Australia’s legal system.

JAIL’s application has been set down for hearing in the Tasmanian registry of the Federal Court of Australia at 10am on Monday, April 12.

Link Here
For those interested in further info, contact: Ray Escobar, “Lest We Forget”, J.A.I.L
Email: [email protected]

34 Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Please note that comments which do not conform with the rules of this site are likely to be removed. They should be on-topic for the page they are on. Discussions about moderation are specifically forbidden. All spam will be deleted within a few hours and blacklisted on the stopforumspam database.

This site is cached. Comments will not appear immediately unless you are logged in. Please do not make multiple attempts.

Skip to toolbar