NSW: Bikies laws found illegal

A High Court full bench ruling has declared NSW's Crimes (Criminal Organisations Control) Act invalid and ordered the state to pay the full legal costs of the case.

It follows a successful challenge by prominent Sydney Hells Angels Motorcycle Club member Derek Wainohu, who faced the possibility of being banned from associating with his fellow club members because of the laws.

The court today found a tough NSW law designed to break up outlaw motorcycle clubs was invalid after a Hells Angel's challenge.

It allowed the NSW police commissioner to ask a NSW Supreme Court judge to declare bikie gangs criminal organisations and then seek control orders banning individual members associating with one another - virtually identical laws to those introduced by the South Australian Rann Government which were also quashed by the High Court.

The Hugh Court decision comes after the High Court in November ruled 6-1 against the SA Government's anti-bikie legislation.

South Australia has been watching the case, after the High Court last year struck out aspects of SA's own tough anti-gang laws, delivering a significant knock to Mr Rann's vow to rid the state of the outlaw groups.

The law obliged the state's courts to impose control orders on bikies at the request of the Attorney-General and police, without any evidence being tendered.

The High Court ruled this unconstitutional, finding that it undermined the independence of judges and forced them to find guilt "based on assumptions".

Law Society of NSW president Stuart Westgarth called the former law a "reaction to a particularly nasty situation".
"We put forward a number of objections to the legislation," Mr Westgarth said.

University of NSW Faculty of Law senior research fellow Christopher Michaelson compared the Act with that of a dictatorial regime.
"I have great concerns about laws which criminalise membership in organisations as opposed to individual criminal behaviour," said Dr Michaelson.
"This is much the practice of dictatorial regimes with little regard to the right to assembly and freedom of organisation."