Published High Court Ruling on Tobacco Plain Packaging: ‘Act Valid as Govt wasn’t Acquiring Property’
There was nothing unconstitutional in the tobacco plain packaging laws that the Australian government will start implementing December 2012, a summary of the High Court ruling on the matter released on Friday said .
The same decision, which was handed down in August, effectively paved the way for the new regulation to commence rolling out in October, with tobacco firms already delivering to retailers cigarette products wrapped mostly in graphic health warnings, Bloomberg said.
Brand names of the products were uniformly printed in small fonts on each pack, which giant tobacco firms said were hardly noticeable and one of the chief reasons they lodged legal challenges to the federal regulatory measures.
The laws, according to British American Tobacco Australia, Japan Tobacco International, Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco Australia, would suppress their rights to employ the brand names that would greatly help in marketing the cigarette products they sell.
In effect, tobacco firms have argued that preventing them to use brand names was tantamount to forced takeover without the benefit of just compensation.
But the High Court disagreed and reiterated that the laws passed by the Australian Parliament in late 2011 were without constitutional flaws.
"Although the (Tobacco Plain Packaging) act regulated the plaintiffs' intellectual property rights and imposed controls on the packaging and presentation of tobacco products it did not confer a proprietary benefit or interest on the commonwealth," the High Court summary was quoted by the Australian Associated Press (AAP) as saying on Friday.
The High Court further ruled that "the act was valid as it did not acquire property. It therefore did not engage section 51(xxxi) of the constitution."
Canberra has consistently maintained that its anti-smoking policy was chiefly geared to curb smoking incidences in Australia, which it claimed as the direct culprit of thousands of deaths in the country due to smoking-related health conditions.
The Health Ministry has indicated in earlier reports that billions of taxpayers' money were being used up each year to pay for the health bills of Aussies that were afflicted with diseases that medical doctors said were caused by heavy smoking and even second smokes.
The amount far outweighs the perceived economic benefits generated by the tobacco industry, Prime Minister Julia Gillard had earlier argued.
Ms Gillard had vowed that her government initiatives regulating the sales and marketing of cigarette products in Australia would lead to the reduction of cigarette use by at least five per cent over the next six years.
And the fangs of the policy appear to be sinking in, Bloomberg said, at least for some of local smokers.
One smoker in Sydney told the news agency that the new cigarette packagings indeed carry with them deep impacts: "The pictures are becoming bigger . . . you can't ignore it."
The smoker added that he saw the very bold health warnings, he quietly told himself: "I will do my best to stop smoking."