Tag Archives: Australia’s Florida

Forever Hold Your Peace or Face Two Years Imprisonment

Posted on by

It’s not the greatest secret in the legal world that many jurisdictions are slow to repeal outdated legislation. Likely owing to the fact that the world is only 6000 years old, most of these crazy old laws are based on religion.

It is illegal to disrupt a wedding or any other religious ceremony in South Australia.

The Summary Offences Act was enacted in 1953 and is patient zero for dopey South Australian laws.

token patient zero.gif

Under s7A of the Act, it is illegal to disrupt a religious ceremony including weddings or funerals. The section creates an offence for disrupting a ceremony regardless of the person’s intent.

S7A(1)(a) creates an offence for disrupting a religious ceremony, whilst s7A(1)(b) creates an offence for disrupting a ceremony in a way that is designed to be offensive. This would suggest that an offence under s7A(1)(a) is intended to cover all behavior that in any way disrupts a wedding. The creation of an absolute liability offence is recognised as generally requiring explicit language from the legislature due to the serious implications, but nonetheless, the language remains open to find this.

This is potentially why the South Australian rom-com movie industry has never taken off.

Mrs Bouvier!

The craziest part is that I haven’t gotten to the crazy part yet. The Act may have been created in 1953 when all those Australian beaus were returning from the end of the Korean war, but section 7A was only added in 1992.

In 1992 Cartoon Network was created, Bill “eating ain’t cheating” Clinton was sworn in as President and South Australia outlawed disrupting weddings. There is no doubt in my mind that the three are closely connected.

illuminati.gif

During the Christmas shopping season in 1997, Daniel Pfeifer wore a Dead Kennedys’ t-shirt with the logo “too drunk to fuck” whilst walking around the Adelaide shopping centres.

too drunk.jpegMr Pfeifer was charged under another section of the Act relating to general offence caused in public places, but the Court considered it similar to s7A and discussed that a mental element must be read into the act by implication.

The question remains unsettled, which is unfortunate for our purposes, but probably fortunate for South Australians. I could not find any instance of definitive judicial instruction on just how extreme the section could be applied. I guess the SA constabulary really needs to become a whole bunch more prescriptive before we get some good guidance.

An offence under s7A carries a fine of up to $10,000 or 2 years imprisonment.

South Australia has a Ban on Being Too Frigid

Posted on by

Apologies already for the misleading title, but “South Australia Has Limits on the Size of Your Fridge” is nowhere near as sexy.

The law itself is easy enough to explain but the purpose behind it is somewhat more intriguing and required a lot more research than you would expect…so you’re welcome.

Disclaimer: All puns are the pundits own and Commercial Lore takes no responsibility for the puns, both terrible and amazing, contained herein.

The Law

The South Australian law was enacted in 1961 in response to an apparent spate of deaths following people becoming trapped in fridges that could only open from the outside.

Under s58b of the Summary Offences Act 1953 (SA), it is illegal to sell or hire a fridge over 42.5 litres that cannot be opened easily from the inside. Or as the law originally stated any fridge over “one and one half cubic feet”…simpler times. Make South Australia Great Again.

A grandfather clause was also introduced providing an exception for any fridge that was purchased or imported to South Australia prior to 1962. The penalty for a person found with a husky esky is $750 of cold hard cash.

In addition to being illegal to sell or hire one, it is also illegal to dispose of one either through dumping (already illegal) or even placing one on a “dump, tip or sanitary depot”.

pg1-fridge-copy

pg2-fridge-copy

It’s proven impossible to find any convictions under this section but one could presume that at some stage a policeman broke out a measuring tape and asked whether their refrigerator was running.

Large Fridges Used to be Cool

This does not just appear to be a silly law, but rather an interesting time-capsule. It makes sense that fridges should be able to open from the inside to prevent unfortunate events. But compared to other states, it is interesting to consider whether South Australia’s fridge death problem was so great that they had to uniquely regulate the types of fridges people could sell. This law is probably past its use-by-date but it’s not hurting anyone, so you know, who cares.