Supreme Court grants injunction against weekend refugee protest
Queensland's Supreme Court has granted an injunction against a sit-in refugee rights protest planned for Saturday, declaring it to be an "interference with public rights".
The decision will also ban a number of people identified as organisers, by lawyers acting for the state's Attorney-General, from attending the event and require them to post the declaration on their own and other social media pages.
Protesters have vowed to go ahead with weekend action on the Story Bridge if the men are not allowed day leave from the hotel.Credit:Stuart Layt
In granting the injunction, Supreme Court Judge Jean Dalton said the protest as planned on the Story Bridge or closer to the Kangaroo Point hotel which has been the subject of months-long protest action further along Main Street would block an "important thoroughfare".
She added it would also "infringe the right the public has to live in a society that is as safe as it can reasonably be made" from COVID-19.
It comes after the state government won Supreme Court action to cancel the event planned for last weekend after organisers had already postponed it due to health authorities concerns of further COVID-19 cases in the community.
After Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said on Monday she was confident there was now "no community transmission" and protest organisers walked out of a meeting with police and the Australian Border Force over their demands, advocates said they would still push ahead.
Senior police and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had said they were looking at every legal option to stop that earlier planned blockade of the bridge, though acknowledged that protests barred in other states had gone ahead anyway.
In the judgement published by Judge Peter Applegarth last week, he found the protest would have imposed a "significant burden" on the rights of the public due to its location, and attempts had not been made to moderate this by organisers under the Peaceful Assembly Act.
Justice Applegarth also noted that planned protest was different to a Black Lives Matter protest barred by the NSW Supreme Court last month as it was a "sit-down" event and protesters intended to be arrested.
An attempt to stop a permitted protest outside the hotel from going ahead in July failed in court.