Active Business Support ServicesIn reading through the court case verdict of the Police officers and Defense forces court ruling on recent government mandate, it appears that the Bill of Rights overrides the mandate that has been imposed. I’m certainly not a qualified lawyer, yet as a Business Advisor and Human Resources agent, I have an interest in how the following ruling might evolve into a snowball phenomenon of others feeling they have been terminated unjustly.
As written in this story on RNZ Justice Cooke today released his decision which upheld their claims the vaccination order breached their rights under the Bill of Rights Act.
While the judge did not accept some of the applicants' arguments, he agreed the mandate infringed on section 11 and section 15 of the Act.
"The order limits the right to be free to refuse medical treatment recognised by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (including because of its limitation on people's right to remain employed), and it limits the right to manifest religious beliefs for those who decline to be vaccinated because the vaccine has been tested on cells derived from a human foetus which is contrary to their religious beliefs," Justice Cooke said.
The significance of the ruling was not clouded by an emotive judgement on whether people should be vaccinated or not, whether the vaccine is purposeful or not, or even whether the vaccine carries any risk or not. The ruling is simply based on the principle rights of individuals to choose without intimidation.
The ruling is one of precedent, as New Zealand’s case-law system allows for future cases of the same or similar type of dispute to reflect on previous cases that have been ruled on with some comparison, with a collection of the same rulings possibly evolving into common law.
As the ruling finds the terminations to be an infringement of the rights of the individuals that sought a judicial review, the current and pending terminations will end. For those already terminated, I would assume there would be some level of payment for the time they have been away from work.
It might be further assumed that other employers that are terminating, or have already terminated their staff, would need to consider the ruling with the consideration to re-instating their terminated staff. It may be that such termination actions have created an amount of frustration with the staff that have already been terminated, suggesting that some employers will need to work with the terminated employees to resolve any lagging issues.
New Zealand has been affected significantly by the requirements to abide by the mandate of terminating the unvaccinated, yet for business to function well and reduce the disruptions recently experienced, successfully working through the re-employment of the unvaccinated, should the employer need to do so, would be a valuable exercise in regaining a good level of productivity for the business going forward.
A business plan is your most valuable asset.
Noel Rodgers MBA – CMC
Business Advisor
For further information on this subject please email Noel Rodgers
E noel@activebss.co.nz M 0274 775583