The Kapiti Coast District Council is facing judicial review over its 2010 decision to retain water fluoridation.

Kapiti Coast resident, Mike Woods, lodged a Judicial Review with the High Court in Wellington on Tuesday. The legal challenge is to the Kapiti Council’s decision that it allowed a councillor with a conflict of interest to vote.

As the 2010 vote was split 5 – 5. If one vote is declared invalid, the vote will retrospectively become 4 in support of retaining fluoridation and 5 opposed. This makes the Council’s vote not in favour of retaining fluoridation and would therefore require the council to stop fluoridation forthwith.

The vote in dispute was cast by a councillor who was also Deputy Chair of the Mid Central District Health Board at the time. This year the Hamilton City Council received legal advice that three of its councillors, who were also on the Waikato DHB, could not vote or even participate in the fluoridation vote because of their conflict of interest. The Far North District Council had previously prohibited councillors who also served on the DHB from voting, for the same reason.

The South Taranaki District Council is also facing judicial review for its 2012 decision to fluoridate Patea and Waverley, against the wishes of the vast majority of submitters to the consultation process. Subsequently, New Health NZ lodged a Judicial Review on the grounds that since the Local Government Act 2002 came into force there is no legal basis for fluoridation and that the STDC are contravening the NZ Bill of Rights Act by providing medical treatment without informed consent.

This STDC Judicial Review is set to be heard on the 25th and 26th of November at the New Plymouth High Court and the Kapiti Coast Judicial Review is set to be heard on the 14th of February at the Wellington High Court.

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