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Lawyers are warning police in Victoria to exercise restraint and use their common sense before issuing $1,652 coronavirus fines for breaches of social isolation rules.
Key points:
- Lawyers say Victoria's travel restriction fines are putting the community's most vulnerable at risk, and can be misused
- The comments follow the revocation of a $1,652 fine issued against a teenager getting a driving lesson from her mother
- The Deputy Police Commissioner said officers could use discretion, but that anyone breaking the rules could be penalised
Police have withdrawn the fine they issued to a 17-year-old learner driver in Melbourne on the weekend, after she was pulled over for non-essential travel.
Sheree Reynolds, who was giving her daughter Hunter a driving lesson from their home in Hampton to Frankston on Sunday, said she was shocked by the fine.
Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said while the fine was legally issued, it had been withdrawn because there was some confusion within the community about whether driving lessons with a parent were allowed.
"The Chief Health Officer has made it clear that undertaking driving practice in the current climate is not an essential activity, unless the learner driver is gaining driving practice in line with one of the four exemptions," Deputy Commissioner Patton said.
"[These include] when driving to purchase food or supplies, or when travelling to work or education."
Despite the cancellation of the fine, civil libertarians said police had been given powers that could be misused.
"When extraordinary measures are being taken, they've got to be exercised with significant restraint," Liberty Victoria senior vice-president Sam Norton said.
"They've got to be exercised in a way that is directed at the purpose of the powers."
Drink driver 'loaded up'
Last Thursday, a 41-year-old man was arrested by police after being caught drink driving at Lakes Entrance, in Victoria's east.
Police said the driver was alone in the car at 1:00am when they pulled him over at Bullock Island.
They alleged the man blew almost four times the legal limit for alcohol.
He had his car impounded and licence suspended but was also fined for breaching social isolation rules.
"Because his travel was not essential for medical or any work etcetera, he received a fine for $1,652," Acting Sergeant Lucas Bull said.
Acting Sergeant Bull said East Gippsland had recorded just the one confirmed case of coronavirus so far and that police were expected to enforce the non-essential travel restrictions.
"If we have someone who has tested positive to this and comes into our area, and we're not taking this as seriously as we should, then it will spread as much as it is in other places," he said.
But Mr Norton said "loading up" an offender with the added COVID-19 fine was, in this case, inappropriate.
"In no way in my view is that an appropriate use of these powers," he said.
"If this fellow is proven to have breached road rules then he should be punished in relation to those matters before the court.
"But to 'load him up', in a sense, and slap him with this additional penalty isn't consistent with the purpose for which these extraordinary powers were granted.
"If he is endangering other road users then punish him for that … but to use these powers in this way demonstrates the risks that there are with the over reach that can arise.
"These powers should be used very, very cautiously only in circumstances where there is a genuine risk of transmission of COVID-19."
Vulnerable at risk, lawyer says
Gippsland lawyer Stephen Peterson says the non-essential travel fines will affect the community's most vulnerable.
"It's going to affect those people who are already living with difficulties in their life, like the homeless people," he said.
"The stay-at-home directions are a bit difficult if you don't have a home, for example."
Since March 21, police have conducted 15,232 spot checks at homes, businesses and non-essential services as part of Operation Sentinel.
More than 370 fines have been issued in Victoria so far.
Deputy Commissioner Patton said that while most people were doing the right thing, there were people who continued to flout the rules and place lives at risk.
"Police will always apply common sense, and in certain circumstances officers will still use discretion," he said.
"However, the expectation on all police officers across the state is that the restrictions are to be enforced.
"If a person is in breach of the restrictions around gatherings of more than two people inside or outside the home, or leaving the home for a reason that is not to seek food and supplies, medical care, to exercise, or attend work or education, then they will receive an infringement notice of $1,652."
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Topics: covid-19, diseases-and-disorders, law-crime-and-justice, lakes-entrance-3909, bairnsdale-3875, melbourne-3000
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