Man caught in gun law paradox
by Roderick Campbell, Legal Reporter
Canberra Times
6 September 1997
A Canberra man is likely to lose his job as a security officer soon - leaving his family of four without an income - because hardline ACT firearms legislation prohibits the issuing of a gun licence to any person who has been the subject of a domestic or apprehended violence order in the previous 10 years.
But if the man had been employed by the ACT Government, rather than the private sector, he might have avoided this harsh result.
The case led the President of the ACT Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Professor Lindsay Curtis, to call on the Legislative Assembly yesterday to review amendments made to the legislation last year, to remove a number of anomalies. "The legislation, while intended to be protective, can work substantial injustice, as it appears to do in this case," he said.
The man was refused a renewal of his business firearms licence because an apprehended violence order was made against him by a NSW court in April 1990. The order was obtained by the woman, who is now his wife and with whom he has been living since the incident which led to the making of the order.
The man told the tribunal he did not challenge the order at the time because he had been told it would have no effect once the relationship had been restored. "He now finds that the order has returned to haunt him," Professor Curtis said.
The Registrar of Firearms had no discretion in the matter. Essentially, it was a case of "one strike and you're out for the next 10 years". And there was nothing the tribunal could do for the man. The refusal decision had to be affirmed.
Professor Curtis said the legislation discriminated, for no apparent reason, against private security guards. ACT government employees needing a firearm licence for their job were not debarred by the existence of a prior AVO. Police had told the tribunal that there may have been many similar cases.
Professor Curtis thought it curious that one legislative provision allowed the Registrar to make a judgement on whether an applicant was a fit and proper person to hold a licence. But the very next provision - the one which had debarred the security guard - seemed to make that judgement irrelevant.
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