## Facts

- New South Wales enacted the World Youth Day Act 2006 (NSW) to support World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, including by creating a coordinating authority and enabling “Authority controlled areas” near venues and transport facilities.
- The applicants were members of an advocacy group opposed to Catholic Church teachings on sexuality and reproductive rights and planned protests near World Youth Day events.
- The World Youth Day Regulation 2008 (NSW) was made under the Act’s regulation-making power.
- The statutory scheme restricted distribution of certain “prescribed articles” (as defined by regulation) within Authority controlled areas during specified periods, potentially covering the applicants’ proposed protest materials (including leaflets and symbolic items).
- A separate regulation (cl 7) made it an offence in declared areas to engage in conduct that would cause “annoyance or inconvenience” to World Youth Day participants.
- The applicants sought declarations that the distribution restriction and the “annoyance or inconvenience” offence were invalid, arguing (1) an unjustified burden on the implied freedom of political communication and (2) that the regulation exceeded the Act’s delegated power when construed with the principle of legality.
- The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia heard the matter on an expedited basis shortly before the event.

## Issues

1. Whether the statutory and regulatory provisions restricting protest activity impermissibly burdened the implied freedom of political communication and were therefore invalid.
2. Whether cl 7 of the regulation, criminalizing conduct causing “annoyance or inconvenience,” was authorized by the enabling Act, construed in light of the principle of legality.

## Decision

- The Court upheld the validity of the distribution restriction in s 46(3) of the Act and the accompanying definition of “prescribed articles” in the regulation.
- The Court declared cl 7 of the regulation invalid as beyond the regulation-making power conferred by the Act.
- The Court resolved invalidity primarily on statutory construction (ultra vires) rather than striking down provisions on the implied-freedom ground.

## Legal Principles

- Delegated legislation must remain within the scope and purpose of the enabling Act; a regulation imposing broad criminal restrictions in public places requires clear statutory authorization.
- Under the principle of legality, general words in a statute are read as not authorizing serious interferences with fundamental common-law freedoms (including expressive and protest activity) absent clear language.
- Vague and subjective standards such as “annoyance or inconvenience,” used as a trigger for criminal liability in public places, may indicate that a regulation exceeds what Parliament can be taken to have authorized under a general regulation-making power.
- The implied freedom of political communication operates as a limitation on legislative and executive power; a law that burdens political communication may nonetheless be valid if directed to a legitimate purpose and appropriately confined to that purpose.

## Conclusion

The Full Court upheld targeted limits on distributing specified items in controlled areas for event management purposes but invalidated a regulation criminalizing conduct that caused “annoyance or inconvenience,” holding that such a broad restraint on public expressive activity was not clearly authorized by the enabling Act when construed under the principle of legality.


Evans v. State of New South Wales, 168 F.C.R. 576 (FCAFC 2008)