The obligation to vaccinate is rejected: the New Zealand High Court pronounces itself decisively
The New Zealand High Court took up a challenge to a vaccine warrant for police and defense personnel, saying it was not a "demonstrably justified" violation of the Charter of Rights.
Judge Francis Cooke addressed the appeal filed by a group of police and defense force personnel against the vaccination requirement under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act in December.
The rule required all Defense Forces personnel and all police officers, recruits and authorized officers to receive a full vaccination by March 1, but by January 6, three unvaccinated staff members who did not wish to receive the shots called for a judicial review of the warrant. They were supported by affidavits from 37 of their colleagues in the same position.
The group claims that two rights enshrined in New Zealand's Bill of Rights Act 1990 were limited by the requirement: the right to refuse medical treatment and the right to manifest religious beliefs.
Cooke, in a judgment made public Friday in New Zealand, did not accept some of the applicants' arguments, but agreed that the warrant "is not a reasonable limit to the rights that can be demonstrably justified" and canceled the order.
"I conclude that the Order does not imply a reasonable limit on the rights of applicants that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society and that is illegal," said Cooke.
"The ordinance limits the right to be free to refuse medical treatment recognized by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (including due to the limitation of people's right to remain employed) and limits the right to manifest religious beliefs for those who refuse to be vaccinated because the vaccine was tested on cells derived from a human fetus that is contrary to their religious beliefs, ”Cooke said.
However, he stressed that the court's decision has no bearing on other vaccination obligations.
"In essence, the ordinance requiring vaccinations for police and NZDF staff was imposed to ensure continuity of public services and to promote public trust in those services, rather than to stop the spread of COVID- 19. In fact, the health advice given to the government was that no further obligations were needed to limit the spread of COVID-19. I am not satisfied that the continuity of these services is materially anticipated by the order , ”he said.
Cooke also concluded that the warrant covered only a small number of personnel – only 164 unvaccinated personnel in a police workforce of nearly 15,700. For the New Zealand Defense workforce, the mandate affected 115 of its 15,480 employees. These are obviously people who have asked for religious or other exemptions.
“ There is also no evidence that this number is different from the number that would have remained unvaccinated and used had the issue been simply addressed by pre-existing internal vaccine policies enforced by the police and the NZDF. Nor is there any concrete evidence that this number of personnel materially affects the continuity of NZDF and the police services , ”the judge wrote.
So the reasons are two:
- violation of the religious and therapeutic rights of members of the police force;
- the futility of forcing such a small minority to get vaccinated.
We could take the same reasons and propose them paro paro in Italy.
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The article rejected the vaccination obligation: the New Zealand High Court makes a decisive decision comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/bocciato-lobbligo-vaccinale-lalta-corte-neozelandese-si-pronuncia-in-modo-deciso/ on Sun, 27 Feb 2022 13:26:21 +0000.