The validity of charges against 14 Queensland activists who are currently facing the possibility of jail, following a climate protest inside the state parliament has been questioned in court.
This is even as the case has been adjourned on Monday.
The group face charges – not laid in more than 30 years – of disturbing the legislature during a protest in which they unfurled banners with anti-fossil fuel slogans from the public gallery and interrupted question time by chanting for about three minutes last November.
Although the charges fall under section 56 of Queensland’s criminal code, which sets a three-year maximum jail term, a Brisbane court heard on Monday that a later section of the same act repeals section 56 as an offence.
Section 717 of the criminal code explicitly says that a person cannot be charged with, prosecuted, convicted or punished for disturbing the legislature. The police prosecutor, Martin Payne lodged a lengthy written submission over which section of Queensland’s laws was in effect at the time of the protest in parliament after amendments to the legislation in 2012.
Andrew Hoare, who is the barrister for the defendants was quoted as saying that there was “no ambiguity” over which section of the law was involved but had not had a chance to submit his own written submission. The magistrate Joseph Pinder gave Hoare five days to do so.
In a separate complication, Pinder was quoted as telling defence and prosecutors that he would not consider proceedings against all 14 defendants at once. The magistrate said that there had been no application to hear all the charges together and that it “reflects rather poorly on the prosecution and defence” that both parties had tried to proceed without such an order.
Hoare said that there had been an application for a joint trial in May but Pinder said there was no record of it.
The case of Lee Coaldrake, a former medical practitioner and wife of the former Queensland University of Technology vice-chancellor Peter Coaldrake, was the only case that Pinder was prepared to hear – she proceeded to plead not guilty to one charge of disrupting the legislature.
The other 13 defendants, who range in age from 24 to 88, were scheduled to have their cases mentioned on 13 November and all defendants had their bail continued.
But the confusion of the morning was amplified by the fact that those in the gallery – including the 14 accused – could not hear much of what was said. The ambiguity left one of the accused, 24-year-old Moorooka woman Aisling Geraghty, to describe the result as “disappointing”.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
