It was shocking how the institutions we thought we could rely on crumbled like a stack of cards. The opposition, the media, the courts, the bureaucracy. Poof. Overnight our government became tyrannical. We were locked down and shut out. We were told lie after lie. Dissent was extinguished.

Our lives were dictated by daily edict.

Our nation was divided, families destroyed, careers lost and businesses bankrupted.

It was the nastiness that shook me: the Prime Minister’s office had Facebook take down a vaccine-injured support group. A vital lifeline for the lonely and the distressed was pulled from under them.

I was not injured but was one of the distressed drawing solace and support from the group. Our own Prime Minister broke us up. We weren’t allowed to meet in person or online. We weren’t counter-revolutionaries. We were just a group supporting one another.

These were the Covid Years. They hang over us still.

But bit-by-bit the truth and the horror is seeping out. Bit-by-bit transparency and accountability is coming.

Brave people are standing up to hold despotic power to account.

Former Minister Barry Brill and his wife have one such case pending in the Wellington High Court (3-day hearing commencing 10 March). They are claiming damages from the ‘Minister for COVID-19 Response' (Chris Hipkins) for their enforced 8-month exile in Australia during 2021-22.

Like many of us, they were denied the right to return home.

They visited family in Perth in July 2021. The “Trans Tasman Bubble” that had enabled their travel was summarily suspended and consequently there were no flights from Western Australia until March 2022. That was despite Western Australia not having a single community case.

The Brills joined Grounded Kiwis Inc. in September and then both offered affidavit evidence for their Judicial Review case filed in October. The Grounded Kiwi case was a rare example of ordinary people fighting back against the COVID madness. It took a massive effort by volunteers, crowd-funding from the public, pro bono services by senior lawyers, and so on.

The Crown kept asking for adjournments but the case was finally heard in February and the Judge found, in April 2022, that the Minister’s Virtual Lobby MIAS (Managed Isolation Allocation System) was a breach of New Zealanders “rights to return” under the Bill of Rights Act. Therefore the entire system was unlawful and invalid.

Crown Law then fought every aspect of the Court’s formal declaration but they lost again. In June 2022 the Court handed down a Declaration. Hipkins mulled an appeal for several weeks but finally tossed in the towel.

Despite being chased by the media, the Minister refused to apologise to the tens of thousands of New Zealand citizens who had been unlawfully locked out of their own country. There were no consequences at all for such an appalling breach of the rights of citizenship.

In December 2022, the Chief Ombudsman delivered his long-gestated report on the lottery system. He was highly critical of the Virtual Lobby and demanded an apology from MBIE. But again there was no Ministerial apology … and no consequences.

Fed up with the lack of accountability the Brills wrote to Minister Verrall in September 2022 seeking an apology and payment of their accommodation expenses during their forced and unlawful exile. She denied liability so the Brills issued their claim for the amount of away-from-home costs approved by the Australian Tax Office. They also sought exemplary damages to vindicate the fundamental importance of New Zealanders' guaranteed rights to return to their homeland.

The Brill’s claim is the long-delayed completion of the Grounded Kiwis Case. Liability is settled, so the legal argument is over – but all the parties who were wronged have received neither apologies nor restitution.

If the claim is vindicated by a damages award, there are several hundred thousand other kiwis who were locked out of their country for similar periods and may well feel entitled to compensation as well. Class action litigators are waiting in the wings.

The details of this pending trial will surely be of interest to the hundreds of thousands of Kiwis who were likewise hindered in returning home, especially those who were unnecessarily delayed for six to twelve months – as the Brills were.

The Brills have been very discreet in pursuing their claim and the Crown even more so. Until now, there has been no publicity. However, on the eve of the hearing the Brills have decided the information should be public – the aggrieved parties should know – and the government again asked (by journalists) — why it doesn't just apologise for breaking the law and for causing so much unnecessary heartbreak and costs.

The hearing is set down for three days starting 10 March.

It’s one of many small steps on the way to ensuring we never so readily slip into tyranny again.