{"id":17474,"date":"2021-12-10T10:04:20","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T23:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/?p=17474"},"modified":"2021-12-10T10:04:21","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T23:04:21","slug":"australian-workers-lose-appeal-to-overturn-vaccine-mandate-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/australian-workers-lose-appeal-to-overturn-vaccine-mandate-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Workers Lose Appeal to Overturn Vaccine Mandate Ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Daniel Y. Teng<\/a> – December 8, 2021 Updated: December 8, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Registered Nurse, Mesfin Desalegn administers the Pfizer vaccine to a client at the St Vincent’s Covid-19 Vaccination Clinic in Sydney, Australia on July 1, 2021 . (Lisa Maree Williams\/Getty Images)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The New South Wales<\/a> Court (NSW<\/a>) of Appeal has dismissed an appeal to overturn a court decision in mid-October that upheld the use of vaccine mandates<\/a> across industries such as aged care, policing, and construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Dec. 8, three justices from the Court of Appeal, President Andrew Bell, Justice Anthony Meagher, and Mark Leeming, heard the case involving several individuals, including Sydney construction worker Al-Munir Kassam and aged care worker Natasha Ryan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bell said the court concluded that vaccine mandates were valid because individuals could \u201cchoose not to be vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe impugned orders contained no sanction for the exercise of the choice not to receive a vaccination,\u201d he said in his judgement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The workers were ordered to pay the court costs with the justices because \u201cno error was demonstrated on appeal\u201d of the previous judge\u2019s findings, and nor did the appellants advance any new arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The appellants\u2014Kassam, Henry, and the other workers\u2014argued that they should not have to pay the costs because of the \u201cpublic importance\u201d of the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October, ten plaintiffs launched legal action against Health Minister Brad Hazzard, Chief Medical Officer Kerry Chant, and the state and federal governments.Read More<\/strong>Australia \u2018Does Not Have a Bill of Rights\u2019: Judge Rules Vaccine Mandates Legal<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice Robert Beech-Jones of the NSW Supreme Court said the court\u2019s function was to determine whether health restrictions were legally valid and whether a minister \u201cacting reasonably\u201d would implement similar measures to deal with a public health crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beech-Jones argued the state health minister had the power to abrogate rights, saying public health orders were doing the \u201cvery thing which the legislation sets out to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo far as the right to bodily integrity is concerned, it is not violated as the impugned orders do not authorise the involuntary vaccination of anyone,\u201d he said in his judgement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proceedings were viewed 1,412,278 times, including nearly 390,000 times on day one of the hearing proper on Sept. 30\u2014indicating significant interest in the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to court data, the audience peaked at 58,484 individuals during the initial directions hearing after the YouTube link was shared across the social media platform Telegram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attempts at challenging vaccine mandates in Australian courts have mostly been unsuccessful, barring last week\u2019s decision from Fair Work Commission (FWC)\u2014the country\u2019s workplace tribunal\u2014striking down a mandate<\/a> by mining giant BHP on a legal technicality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September, the FWC did, however, uphold the dismissal<\/a> of an aged care worker for refusing to receive a jab for influenza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since October, three legal challenges<\/a> in NSW\u2014including Kassam and Henry\u2019s case\u2014against vaccine mandates have failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, a challenge in Tasmania from health workers was unsuccessful, while in Queensland, police failed to overturn the public health directive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Y. Teng – December 8, 2021 Updated: December 8, 2021 The New South Wales Court (NSW) of Appeal has dismissed an appeal to overturn a court decision in mid-October that upheld the use of vaccine mandates across industries such as aged care, policing, and construction. On Dec. 8, three justices from the Court… Read More »Australian Workers Lose Appeal to Overturn Vaccine Mandate Ruling<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7,97,151,214,769,27,8],"tags":[5184,5185,5182,1006,5,1598,5183,2008,226,222,5186,270,3559,10,45,1725],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/australian-workers2.jpg?fit=640%2C384&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17476,"href":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17474\/revisions\/17476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unshackledminds.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}