Anti-lockdown campaigner part of fresh legal challenge to COVID-19 restrictions

In Australia, an anti-lockdown campaigner who was arrested last month over a reposting on social media of a planned mass gathering is part of another challenge to the legal basis of Victoria's coronavirus pandemic restrictions. A Supreme Court writ filed on Wednesday afternoon lists as plaintiffs Kerry Cotterill and Tony Pecora and, as defendants, the state's most senior health department bureaucrats, Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton and Deputy Public Health Commander Finn Romanes. The challenge is at least the 11th case brought before the courts over the COVID-19 pandemic in Victoria, and argues that the Chief Health Officer's stay-at-home orders burdens individuals' freedom of political communication implied in Australia's Constitution.