Qld sex offender Fardon challenges new law LAWS designed to keep Queensland's most dangerous sex offenders in jail are constitutionally invalid and an attack on the integrity of the courts, a court has heard. Queensland's attorney-general is appealing a court's decision to release serial rapist Robert John Fardon, 65. Fardon's lawyers challenged the appeal's validity on Tuesday after new laws that give Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie the power to overrule the court and keep any sex offender he chooses behind bars. The challenge was echoed by lawyers for a second sex offender, Mark Richard Lawrence, who is waiting for a review of his indefinite jail term. Lawrence and Fardon have spent most of their adult lives in jail for offences including rape and sexual assault, while Lawrence is also convicted of manslaughter. Fardon's barrister Dan O'Gorman argued the new laws, combined with existing laws allowing prisoners to be locked up indefinitely, impose "executive processes" on the court. "If the attorney-general doesn't like a decision of this court, he can in effect overrule it and that, in our submission, is an attack on the integrity of this court," Mr O'Gorman told the Court of Appeal in Brisbane on Tuesday. He added no judge should be required to rule on legislation that is constitutionally invalid. Lawrence's barrister John Allen said the fact that one of the litigants (the attorney-general) could overrule the court's decision made a mockery of the judicial process. Peter Davis, for Mr Bleijie, maintained the new law was valid, and even if the judges disagreed, the 2003 law allowing dangerous prisoners to be locked up indefinitely had been proved valid. Fardon was the first person to be jailed indefinitely under the Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act. But he was locked up again hours later when Mr Bleijie appealed against the order for his release.