Lawyer’s report: Katie Ashby-Koppens
On 8 August 2022, the AVN will be appearing before a full bench of the Federal Court to appeal Justice Perry’s March decision which found that the AVN did not have Standing to bring the action against the Health Secretary, Brendan Murphy, for a judicial review of his decision to approve the C-19 products for 5-11 year olds, and the mandamus case remitting the decision to the Secretary to consider withdrawing the C-19 injectables.
This appeal date on the Standing issue only was expedited by her Honour Associate Justice Jagot in a case management hearing held Tuesday. Her Honour dealt with the parties officiously and fairly, granting the AVN an expedited hearing date to hear the appeal, by giving us the first date both of the parties were available.
The AVN’s appeal was lodged within 24 hours of Justice Perry returning her decision on Costs, and we thereafter sought an expedited hearing date. An affidavit of our statistician Lisa Mitchell was filed in support of the application for urgency. That affidavit outlined that since the roll out of C-19 products to the 5-11 year olds, there have been 5 deaths reported to DAENs in this age group and at least 1,390 adverse events amongst 5-11 year olds. In the adolescent and adult age group, these numbers are far greater with at least 890 deaths and over 133,000 adverse events reported.
Tomorrow the AVN will file its submissions and other documents relevant to the appeal. The respondent has 3 weeks to file its reply submissions.
Once the issue of Standing is resolved by the full bench of the Federal Court, the AVN will be seeking that a full bench of the Federal Court also consider both the judicial review of the decision to approve the C-19 products for 5-11 year olds, and the mandamus case remitting the decision to the Secretary to consider withdrawing the C-19 products. It is not possible for these substantive hearings to be heard on 8 August 2022. However expedition for the substantive hearings will also be sought as soon as possible.
