Australian Doctor Suspended for Saying COVID-19 Vaccine Is Dangerous Appeals High Court’s Decision

Dr William Bay is seen talking to supporters outside the Brisbane Supreme Court in Brisbane, Australia, on Nov. 30, 2022. AAP Image/Darren England

An Australian doctor suspended for speaking out on the harmful side effects of COVID-19 vaccines has appealed a High Court’s decision after it refused to adjudicate his lawsuit, which was filed against the country’s medical regulators.

In August 2022, Dr. William Bay, a Queensland GP registrar, received a medical registration suspension notice from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) after he interrupted a national conference in late July and told the medical experts there to stop forcing people to take COVID-19 vaccines.

The medical regulator considered Dr. Bay’s action not in line with its COVID-19 vaccine policies and posed serious risks to persons, and decided to put his medical licence on hold.

The GP registrar filed a lawsuit against the AHPRA, the Medical Board of Australia and the state government to Queensland’s Supreme Court in November 2022 to regain his registration.

He later applied to have his case removed to the High Court–Australia’s highest court–for adjudication in March 2023.

In making the decision, Dr. Bay said his opponents tried to have the lawsuit dismissed in the Supreme Court.

He also believed the matter of his lawsuit contained a significant level of public interest and importance that it needed to be heard in a court with national jurisdiction.

High Court Rejects Dr. Bay’s Application

In early June, the High Court issued a notice rejecting Dr. Bay’s application to have his lawsuit adjudicated by the court.

In the court document seen by The Epoch Times, Justices Michelle Marjorie Gordon and Simon Harry Peter Steward said Dr. Bay’s application did not identify any basis to justify the High Court’s interference with the Supreme Court of Queensland’s processes.

They also noted that the Supreme Court of Queensland would be deprived of the benefit of the reasoning if the High Court approved Dr. Bay’s application.

“In the circumstances, including the interests of the parties and the public interest, the Court is not persuaded that it is appropriate to make the order sought,” Justices Gordon and Steward said.

The justices then awarded the cost against Dr. Bay.

Appealing the High Court’s Notice

Following the High Court’s notice, Dr. Bay launched an appeal against the decision.

In the appeal, he alleged that Justices Gordon and Steward made errors in judgement by mistaking the whole of the proceeding with part of the matter of the lawsuit.

He pointed out that the matter of his lawsuit was not about AHPRA’s application in the Supreme Court, as stated in the High Court’s notice, but about his application to review AHPRA’s suspension of his medical registration, which he believed was invalid due to multiple errors of law.

The High Court is seen in Brisbane, Australia, on April 7, 2020. Jono Searle/Getty Images

Dr. Bay said he was advised that he could not appeal the High Court’s decision as it was made by the highest level of justice in Australia and thus was unable to be challenged.

However, the suspended GP still decided to proceed with the appeal, which was later allowed by the High Court on July 4.

Dr. Bay believed the High Court’s decision to allow the filing of his appeal application indicated that the court was objective, just and lawful despite peoples’ fears of corruption in the judiciary.

“It would have been very easy for them to have dismissed my filing of the appeal as they have so much power, but they chose the harder, more moral and lawful path, and this gives me great hope in an inevitable victory in the High Court on my substantive matters regarding the unconstitutionality of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law,” he told The Epoch Times.

At present, Dr. Bay is waiting for his opponents to decide whether they will contest the appeal, with the next step to be determined by the High Court.

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Facing Criminal Charges for Protesting Outside AHPRA Building

In a related development, the Queensland Police Service (QPS) has laid charges against Dr. Bay after he was arrested while protesting outside the AHPRA Building on May 23.

According to a video on social media, Dr. Bay was protesting with a megaphone outside the office of the medical regulator when several police officers approached him and told him to move to another place.

Dr. Bay refused to follow the officers’ direction arguing that he had the political right to protest peacefully in the public space. He was then arrested and put into a police vehicle.

Later, in a court brief, the QPS stated that Dr. Bay had been charged with contravening a direction by a police officer.

The QPS argued that Dr. Bay did not inform the police of the protest in advance and was not given the authority to organise the gathering.

Dr William Bay (left) is seen talking to supporters and media outside the Queensland Supreme Court in Brisbane, Australia, on Nov. 30, 2022. AAP Image/Darren England

In addition, it said the manager of a nearby café and restaurant had filed a complaint with the police that the excessive noise caused by Dr. Bay’s protest caused him to lose customers, which gave the police officers a reason to issue the direction.

Meanwhile, Dr. Bay told The Epoch Times he thought that the QPS had no lawful basis to have arrested or charged him.

“This is because it is an absurdity to present as evidence that my loud voice could have prevented the coming or going of patrons to a café,” he said.

“Without any reasonable basis for the move-on order, I was completely within the law to not overt their command. Consequently, they committed a crime by depriving me of my liberty and imprisoning me for 24 hours.”

In addition, Dr. Bay alleged that his imprisonment was wrongly exacerbated as the QPS watchhouse told him that they could only release him if he agreed to conditions to never return to the central business district of Brisbane (where the AHPRA office is located) to protest, which he refused.

The GP also believed that he was a political target of the Queensland Government because he was suing the state in the High Court.

“(Because) I will be an opposing candidate against the Deputy Premier in the 2024 Queensland state election, and because none of my fellow protesters was arrested despite using megaphones as well, and because the Queensland Department of Justice has told me in writing that they do not agree with my politics regarding the COVID-19 vaccines,” he said.

The case is currently adjourned until Aug. 30 to give the police a chance to clarify what charges and any further evidence they had against Dr. Bay.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the QPS for comment but has yet to receive a reply in time for publication.