This should not go unnoticed … It has direct relevance to groups/individuals who seek to dispute legislation or government actions, for instance.
Mercury QuickNews report:
Pest litigant move
The Mercury
17 Mar 2011
SERIAL litigants will face being blacklisted from all courts and tribunals under new laws aimed at stamping out a practice claimed to cost the Tas-manian judicial system millions in wasted time.
Justice Minister David Bartlett yesterday tabled a Bill giving the Supreme Court the power to make a vexatious proceedings order which prohibits or limits the right of such a person to take or continue action in any court or tribunal in Tasmania, not just the Supreme Court.
Here’s the bill from the state parliament website:
Vexatious Proceedings Bill – 14 of 2011
www.parliament.tas.gov.au/bills/pdf/14_of_2011.pdf
“vexatious proceedings” includes –
(a) proceedings that are an abuse of the process of a court or tribunal; and
(b) proceedings instituted to harass or annoy, to cause delay or detriment, or for another wrongful purpose; and
(c) proceedings instituted or pursued without reasonable ground; and
(d) proceedings conducted in a way so as to harass or annoy, cause delay or detriment, or achieve another wrongful purpose;
Here’s a comment on something similar from the USA:
In Illinois, Public Acccountability is ‘Vexatious’
by John Bambenek
http://biggovernment.com/jbambenek/2011/03/15/in-illinois-public-acccountability-is-vexatious/
Illinois has long earned the reputation as one of the most corrupt states in the union and for reasons too numerous to list here.
However, not content to have reached rock bottom, the Illinois Municipal League (a collection of local government officials) and Lord State Senator Ed Maloney have decided to start digging.
They have introduced Senate Bill 1645 which would allow local government officials to label any individual who files more than 15 Freedom of Information Act requests in a year, or more than 5 in a month, “vexatious”. This would then allow them to summarily reject any and all FOIA’s filed by that person. There is no judicial review of this designation nor any right to appeal. You see, us taxpayers who want to know more about our government are annoying so they want to be able to shut us down.
