Life
on the open road has its pleasures but not for Nelson City Council when a gypsy
lifestyle comes to town and parking restrictions are ignored. Council got riled when unpaid parking fines
exceeded $8800. The High Court has sent
on to the Court of Appeal questions of whether local authorities are justified
in seeking court injunctions to enforce bylaws when there is a prosecution
regime in place to enforce these rules.
Mr Stanton enjoys life on the
road with his horse and cart. The High
Court was told he often frequents Nelson City, stopping in the city centre
soliciting donations from the public. He
refuses to pay the required fee on metered parking spaces. He ignores the time limits on unmetered
spaces. When prosecuted, his arguments
that parking laws were in breach of his rights of freedom under the Bill of
Rights Act and that car parking restrictions applied only to cars not horses
did not succeed. He refused to do
community service ordered for non-payment of parking fines and was imprisoned
for contempt.
Nelson City obtained an
injunction in the District Court prohibiting Mr Stanton from breaching the
City’s parking bylaws. The High Court
quashed the injunction: questioning whether local authorities should use
injunctions to enforce bylaws in situations where a penalty regime already
exists; whether an injunction serves any useful purpose when the penalty regime
is being ignored in any event; and whether an injunction is appropriate where
behaviour complained of is intermittent and periodic, rather than
continual.
Next stop: the Court of
Appeal.
Nelson
City v. Stanton – High Court (6.03.15)
15.014