Mon Feb 28, 2022 – 8:42 pm EST
(LifeSiteNews) — New Zealand’s high court struck down Prime Minister Jacinda Arden’s vaccine mandate for all Defense Force personnel and police officers on Friday.
Justice Francis Cooke upheld a challenge to a mandate, which had required all Defense Force and police to receive two COVID shots by March 1, 2022, under the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act. Cooke argued that it imposed “unjustified limits on fundamental rights protected by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.”
Cooke concluded that the relevant rights being infringed upon by the mandate were “the right to be free to refuse medical treatment” and “the right to manifest religious beliefs” while acknowledging that the “right to work” was also indirectly limited via “associated pressure to surrender employment.”
Some of the 37 employees who joined in submitting the legal challenge shared religious objections to the jab mandate on the grounds that the Pfizer shot was tested on cells derived from an aborted human fetus.
A total of 164 out of nearly 15,700 in the police force, and 115 out of 15,500 in the New Zealand Defense Force (NZDF) had refused COVID vaccination, RNZ reported.
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