Australasian Biker News
Gypsy Jokers lose Federal Court 'fortress' challenge
Article from: The Sunday Times
AAP
February 07, 2008 10:00am
A BIKIE gang has lost a High Court challenge aimed at forcing West
Australian police to reveal secret information about its activities.
The Perth chapter of Gypsy Jokers Motor Cycle Club has been involved in
a long-running legal stoush after WA police sought to stop it turning
suburban clubhouses into fortified bunkers.
A building, in the industrial Perth suburb of Maddington, featured a
concrete front wall, surveillance cameras, steel doors and modified
timber doors.
WA police believed the clubhouse was heavily fortified and occupied by
those reasonably suspected of involvement in organised crime.
In 2004, police successfully applied to the WA Corruption and Crime
Commission (CCC) for an order to have the fortifications removed.
The Gypsy Jokers maintained Maddington was a high-crime area and the
fortifications were needed to protect 10 valuable customised Harley
Davidson motorcycles that members stored on the premises.
The club did not respond to the police claim that it was an organised
crime group, but it did seek a review of the fortification removal
notice in the WA Supreme Court.
The legal argument centred on a provision of the Corruption and Crime
Commission Act which allowed police to keep some information secret,
even though they relied on it to make their case.
The Gypsy Jokers objected to receiving only an edited version of an
affidavit provided to the court which listed 59 club members, all but
one, with a criminal record.
Police also listed 130 charges faced by club members or associates.
The club's challenge against the secret information section of the Act
was rejected by the WA Court of Appeal, which has yet to review the
removal order.
The club argued in the High Court that the section was an unacceptable
form of control over the court and was a denial of procedural fairness.
High Court judges, by a 6-1 majority, dismissed the appeal.
They held that it was really up to the WA Supreme Court, not the police,
to determine whether disclosure of information might prejudice police
operations.
The section did not bar the Supreme Court from examining the police
decision and neither did it direct the court on how to exercise its
jurisdiction.
WA Police welcome ruling
WA Police have welcomed the decision of the High Court of Australia to
uphold the validity of WA’s anti fortification legislation as set out in
the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) Act.
But Deputy Commissioner Murray Lampard emphasised that today’s 6-1
majority decision was only a partial victory and did not mean police
could immediately proceed with the removal of the fortifications at the
Gypsy Jokers Maddington clubhouse.
“The Gypsy Jokers application for a review of the fortification removal
notice will now go back before the WA Supreme Court, in accordance with
the interpretation of Section 76 of the CCC Act set down by the High
Court in its judgement published today”, Deputy Commissioner Lampard
said.
“Until that hearing is finalised it would be inappropriate for police to
make further comment.”