Can a council absolve themselves of responsibility for actions on their property? Having moved into a brand new property a year ago, we have been plagued by a noise nuisance from the city council owned car park across the road from us (I hate to be the person that moves to a place and then complains about it, but this isn't normal activity like an airport, pub, club etc). From 8pm until the early hours of the morning most days of the week (worse at weekends) youths with cars and motorbikes have been congregating underneath the flyover in the car park, revving their engines, shouting, playing loud music, racing each other around the car park and (more recently) having horn blowing contests. This can literally be until they choose to disperse at some point after midnight, so you can imagine how hard it is to sleep with this going on. The exit to the car park is pretty much outside our property, and they use the road our property is on as a race way - they exit the car park, do a high speed circuit of the block and return to the car park. 6 months ago I raised this issue with the city council through their noise nuisance complaints website, but I received a reply that the council only deals with noise nuisance issues caused by council or private tenants or property owners - any noise nuisance issues on council land is not their responsibility, and instead directed me to the local wardens or the police. The local wardens only patrol up to 8pm, so they have already said they cannot do anything. I have thus far lodged more than 40 complaints with the police non-emergency number, and not once has anyone been sent out, even when the report has been after midnight. I have ample video and audio evidence of the nuisance (one of the first things suggested online is to keep a diary of the nuisance, so I set up a Raspberry Pi to record raw audio and the decibel level a few months back), and my neighbours have similar issues and are backing us. Legal action is the next recourse, and the only people I can take action against are the council as its their property - but they are saying its not their problem... So my question is thus - can the city council actually absolve themselves of legal responsibility for actions on their property? Private property owners cannot do this, they are responsible for the noise on their property, so why can the council?
Actually, neither the council nor a private owner are responsible for illegal actions by unauthorised people on their property. This is obvious: if an intruder enters your property and, while there, shoots someone you cannot be held responsible. However ... Since you have made them aware that there are intruders on their property acting illegally and causing a nuisance to the neighbours and they have done nothing they are quite likely negligent, even recklessly negligent. Rather than sue them, consult a lawyer and get them to write a letter that if they do not take action by X date you are going to sue them.
In the United States, there is no potential liability for the municipality or the police department. There is no legally enforceable duty of police to act to prevent either violations of the law, or apprehend criminals, or to prevent suicide of people who are not in police custody. Other countries have different laws on this subject.
The bouncer is employed (or (sub)contracted) by the owner/lessee of premises - someone with the right to evict persons from their private property per the common law rights to exclusive use of one's property. When the bouncer evicts you, they are exercising this right on behalf of and as the agent for the owner, who could do it, but instead has assigned limited agency to the bouncer to do that for them. Entrance to (and remaining on) a property may be authorised and revoked at any time - at the time that consent is not given or is withdrawn, you become a trespasser and the police may be called upon to forcibly remove you from the premises. For example, I can have a party at my house, but if I don't like someone, I'm entitled to ask them to leave. I could also ask a friend to ask that person to leave, if I didn't want to do it myself. Note that bouncers aren't empowered to physically evict anyone except for the general right to use reasonable and proportionate force. For instance, someone that was just standing around in the nightclub probably couldn't be physically thrown out, but someone who was causing harm to themselves or others could be restrained or repelled as appropriate (and if restrained, you'd need to be very careful to do so in the course of effecting a citizen's arrest, otherwise you'd probably be committing false imprisonment). There may be statutory provisions that bestow additional rights and responsibilities upon bouncers, but this is the basic premise. I'm fairly certain that this would apply in all Australian jurisdictions; probably in all common law jurisdictions.
Police are subject to the same law as everybody else A report of a crime by a police officer should get the same consideration as any other report. However, there is a perennial problem that is inherent in any organization policing its own - quis custodiet ipsos custodes. For that reason, many jurisdictions have internal or external integrity commissions or ombudsmen to deal with this problem. Also, police, by the nature of their job, can annoy people and may therefore attract vexatious complaints.
No First, no new laws came into effect - new restrictions under existing law did. Specifically, the Premier declared a State of Disaster under s23(1) of the Emergency Management Act 1986 which requires it to be broadcast from a broadcasting station in Victoria (the televised press conference did that) and published in the government gazette (see first link). The government gazette is the communication channel for the promulgation of law - once it's in that then you are deemed to know it. The specific restrictions were communicated in the press conference and the power to impose them comes from s24(2)(d): (2) In addition to and without in any way limiting the generality of subsection (1), in a state of disaster the Minister may— (d) control and restrict entry into, movement within and departure from the disaster area or any part of it Note that this is a different Act than the previous restrictions which were under s200 of the public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008. Second, ignorance is only an excuse when the law says it is an excuse. Neither of the above laws do that. Most laws don't do that. An example of one that does (that I know from personal experience) is s58 of the new-south-wales Road Transport (Vehicle Registration) Regulation 2017 which says: For the purposes of section 68(2)(b) of the Act, the use of an unregistered registrable vehicle on a road or on a road related area is permitted if the person using the vehicle-- (a) was not the responsible person for the vehicle at the relevant time, and (b) did not know, and could not reasonably have known, that the vehicle was unregistered at the relevant time. However, even here, the ignorance plea is in relation to the facts of the situation, not the applicable law. My son drove my company car while unregistered and pled this defence. The regulator denied that he had a reasonable excuse because he should have checked the registration status using the NSW Government App before driving it. That is, my son had a duty to make all reasonable efforts to establish the registration status of the vehicle. However, they used their discretion and waived the fine. Which brings me to ... Third, officers, prosecutors and judges have discretion in how they apply the law. While ignorance is not an excuse, it is a factor that they can consider in deciding if you should be penalised and how much that penalty should be.
The appeals court has found that the county court judge made a decision that was consistent with the evidence that was presented at trial. As such, the decision is sound. It appears that the defendant tried to present additional/different evidence or different arguments about the law in the appeal than they did at trial - this is not permitted. As to responsibility, the defendant and their legal team were responsible for deciding how to run their case and what evidence to present and what arguments to run. What evidence to present and how to present it and what submissions to make on the law is a tactical decision for each party. You can get it wrong. That doesn't let you try again on appeal. If your barrister has been negligent, and that directly caused you to lose, you can sue your barrister. In terms of interpreting a particular paragraph of a judgement, the appeals court may or may not make comment on a particular paragraph but the reasons, while important, are not really subject to interpretation other than that. A judgement will give orders, these should be very precise and not open to interpretation - things like &quot;the defendant will pay X to the plaintiff&quot; or &quot;the case is dismissed&quot; etc.
Rob is responsible. No Bull! Around the world, the law of wandering cattle depends on the details. New Zealand is no different. This case is covered by s 26 of the Impounding Act of 1955, Damages for Trespass. As you said, S 26(1)(d) says Bob is entitled to damages whenever his &quot;land (whether fenced or unfenced) is situated in a city.&quot; This is different to the rest of the country, where animals must be fenced out. S 26(2) of the Impounding Act says the damage is owed by Rob, as the owner of the stock: (2) In any case where damages are payable under this section the amount of any damage shall be recoverable by action from the owner of the stock. It may be that Rob and Alice have some arrangement that Alice will indemnify Rob against any trespass damages. But that agreement does not change the underlying law; it only allows him to recoup his loses (by suing his mother, if necessary!). Added: Something fun to read Law professor Robert Ellickson studied how people actually resolve disputes over wandering cattle in Shasta county in northern California. There's a readable summary of what he found here. (The title of his book, &quot;Order without law,&quot; sums up his main finding -- there are rules that are enforced, but those rules have little to do with the formal law or law enforcement.)
Charged? Of course, the police can charge you with anything at any time Could you be convicted? Maybe. Their best shot is charging you with “Manslaughter by an unlawful and dangerous act” also called constructive manslaughter. The Crown must prove your act: was intentional, was unlawful, leads the reasonable person to realise that some other person is at risk of physical harm, and caused the death. The first two are uncontestable: the protesters are deliberately engaging in an illegal act. No 3 would be up to the jury. No 4 is also up to the jury and would turn on the evidence that the delay to the ambulance caused the death.