Rights not infringed, says Crown

Four aviation security officers who lost their jobs over their decision not to have the Covid-19 vaccine are examples of the rights of individuals not being infringed, a court has been told.

Crown lawyer Austin Powell said that notwithstanding the consequences in losing their jobs, the four officers were able to refuse medical treatment.

Their decisions had a profound impact on their lives, Justice Francis Cooke said in the High Court at Wellington yesterday.

The four are now unemployed. Their names were suppressed, but it can now be reported that they were from Christchurch.

The judge reserved his decision on the officers’ challenge to the Covid-19 public health response order, which said people in certain occupations connected to the border should be vaccinated.

The officers challenged the efficacy and safety of the vaccine, and the legality of the order, and wanted it quashed.

The Crown said that in a viral epidemic, the consequences of not being vaccinated did not stay only with the individual. The risks were that the individual would become infectious, and that they would infect others. That risk fell most heavily on vulnerable members of society, Powell said.

The four officers refused vaccination, and lost their jobs at the end of September. Their lawyer, Sue Grey, said they had medical and other reasons for refusing.

The officers claimed that the order limited rights and freedoms contained in the New Zealand Bill of Rights, and that the limits were not reasonable, prescribed by law, and shown to be justified in a free and democratic society.

The judge said he was not sure how much of a precedent his decision would set for workers facing vaccine orders.

One possible outcome of the case was that the order could be sent back to Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins to reconsider in respect of border workers.