The problem with these Coronavirus laws is that they were enacted in an emergency and lacked the depth of consideration by the legal profession before becoming law. We are now seeing a vast number of people served with a thousand dollar fine which seems to be determined by the individual opinion of the police officer tasked with enforcing compliance.
Legal minds are warning that the aftermath will be a plurality of appeals and in the vast majority of cases these would be dealt with either very leniently or dismissed because of the number of technicalities involved. The problem with these laws is that they are not instructing people about the black and white. Once matters are left to police discretion and common sense, common sense is not " common " at all.
The other problem is that while this Coronavirus is a national affliction that is killing people, the laws governing our response vary widely between the various states and territories. It is very evident that nationally nobody seems to be on the same page.
Legal minds despair that these are laws cobbled together and containing so many "ifs, buts and maybe's " that they are legally not able to be enforced. They are simply a giant bluff to try and persuade the public to stop congregating in numbers that allows the virus to spread from person to person.
Initially, there was much confusion and some rebellion. The fact that police began handing out thousand dollar fines quickly brought public behaviour under control and a matter of days later we see encouraging figures in the spread of the disease. Across the board, the herd is roughly following the guidelines to the extent that the objective sought is being achieved.
Thinking minds will see the benefit of these shock tactics. COVID-19 sprang out of Wuhan, China with little warning and we faced a world Pandemic because airlines distributed people internationally across the globe. It was on our shores within hours and unless we took immediate steps to counter its spread we faced a calamity.
It took this form of shock tactics to bring about the degree of compliance that limited the spread of the disease. When the danger passes, the old tried and tested legal system will spring into action and deal with those fines that may have been illegally and illogically imposed.
Some other countries hesitated to take similar action, and that hesitation resulted in the virus rampaging out of control and cutting a swathe of death which we have escaped in this country.
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