Australian Broadcasting Corporation; John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd v The Local Court Sitting in Central Local Court & Downing Centre Local Court

[1992] HCATrans 51

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry

Sydney No Sll of 1992

B e t w e e n -

AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING

CORPORATION

Applicant

and

THE LOCAL COURT SITTING IN

CENTRAL LOCAL COURT, AND

DOWNING CENTRE LOCAL COURT

First Respondent

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

NEW SOUTH WALES

Second Respondent

A, B, C, D, and E

Third to Seventh Respondents

Office of the Registry

Sydney No Sl3 of 1992

1 14/2/92

B e t w e e n -

JOHN FAIRFAX GROUP PTY LTD

Applicant

and

THE LOCAL COURT SITTING IN

CENTRAL LOCAL COURT, AND

DOWNING CENTRE LOCAL COURT

First Respondent
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS
DETECTIVE SENIOR CONSTABLE

WILLIAMS

Second Respondent

A, B, C, D and E

Third to Seventh Respondents

THOMAS HO

Eighth Respondent

HER MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY GENERAL

IN AND FOR THE STATE OF NEW

SOUTH WALES

Intervener

Applications for special

leave to appeal

BRENNAN J

DAWSON J

TOOHEY J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT SYDNEY ON FRIDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 1992, AT 11.04 AM

Copyright in the High Court of Australia

MR W.H. NICHOLAS, OC:  I appear with my learned friend,

MR D.A. CASPERSONN, in the Fairfax application.

(instructed by Mallesons Stephen Jaques)

MR M.G. SEXTON: If the Court pleases, I appear for the

Australian Broi::dcasting Corporation in that

application. instructed by Judith Walker,

Australian Broadcasting Commission)

14/2/92

MR K. MASON, QC, Solicitor-General for New South Wales: If

the Court pleases, I appear with my learned friend,

MR A.W. STREET, for the Director of Public

Prosecutions in the ABC matter and for the Director and the Attorney-General in the Fairfax matter.

(instructed by the Solicitor for Public

Prosecutions). The Local Court, I understand, has

filed a submitting appearance and

Detective Williams, who is named as a respondent in

the Fairfax matter was, I understand, never served

in the proceedings, he being the original

informant, the matter having been taken over by the

DPP.

MR D.F. JACKSON, QC: If the Court pleases, I appear with my

learned friend, MR ROBERTSON J. WRIGHT, for the

respondents identified as A, B, C, D and E in the

proceedings. (instructed by Freehill Hollingdale &

Page)

BRENNAN J:  In the matter of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd

against the Local Court, the Deputy Registrar

certifies that she has been informed by the

solicitors for the eighth respondent, Thomas Ho, in

these proceedings that they have been instructed

not to appear and will submit to any orders of the

Court except as to costs.

In the same matter, the Deputy Registrar

certifies that she has been informed by the

Australian Government Solicitor, who acts on behalf on the first respondents in these proceedings,

Brian Patrick Hanrahan, Magistrate, styled in these

pleadings as the Local Court sitting in Central

Local Court and Downing Centre Local Court, that he has been instructed not to appear and will submit

to any orders of the Court except as to costs.

In the matter of the Australian Broadcasting

Corporation against the Local Court sitting in

Central Local Court and Downing Centre Local Court

and Others, the Deputy Registrar certifies that she

has been informed by the Australian Government

Solicitor who acts on behalf of the first

respondents in these proceedings, Brian Patrick

Hanrahan, Magistrate, styled in these pleadings as the Local Court sitting in Central Local Court and

Downing Centre Local Court, that he has been

instructed not to appear and will submit to any

orders of the Court except as to costs.

Yes, Mr Nicholas.

MR NICHOLAS:	Your Honours, in relation to our matter, the Fairfax matter, it will be seen, I think, from
page 141 of the book, a question is raised as to
whether or not our process has been filed within

14/2/92

time.	As I understood it, we were bound to draw
that to Your Honours' attention.	I gather there is

no point taken on the matter so I will not take up

any further time in relation to that.

BRENNAN J:  Is there any objection to the extension of time?

MR NICHOLAS:  Thank you. Your Honours, there are some

preliminary matters to attend to, if I may. We had

sent to the Court in the early part of the week a

second volume of additional materials.

Your Honours, there are a number of pages which

were poorly reproduced. May we hand up to the

Court for inclusion in that second volume four

copies of pages 73 and 75, and I will come to the

detail of that in due course, if I may.

BRENNAN J: This is page 73 of what, Mr Nicholas?

MR NICHOLAS:  Of the while volume of additional materials,

Your Honour. It should go in under tab 7. Unless

the Court had a much clearer copy than we did,

pages 73 and 75 that are in the volume have a

number of obscure passages.

BRENNAN J: Thank you.

MR NICHOLAS:  The next matter we wish to raise is this: as

Your Honours appreciate, the Magistrate, when he

made the orders about which we complain, had before

him the letters which were the subject-matter of

the extortion charge. Now, Your Honours, they have

been subject to orders which have restrained the

way in which they can be dealt with and I would ask
my friend to produce to the Court a copy of each of

them, because I want to take Your Honours to them.

They do not appear otherwise in the record.

MR JACKSON:  So far as we are concerned, we have consented

to the Court, of course, seeing the documents,

subject to undertaking being given in relation to

them.

BRENNAN J:  You require an undertaking to be given in Court,

Mr Jackson?

MR JACKSON:  We would just like it to be clear that an

undertaking has been given as to confidentiality.

MR NICHOLAS:  We have given undertakings - I have no

difficulty in giving an undertaking, if my friend

seeks one.

BRENNAN J:  Does that satisfy you, Mr Jackson?

14/2/92

MR JACKSON: Well, it does, Your Honour. I would just like

the matter to be recorded so that it does not go

beyond that.

BRENNAN J: It is recorded that an undertaking has been

given; the terms of it, of course, is a matter of

knowledge to counsel. It does not seem to be an

undertaking to the Court of any sort because we do

not know what the terms of it are.

MR NICHOLAS:  I understood my friend was referring to the

written undertaking that we were asked to give

earlier this week, and which we all gave.

DAWSON J: Undertaking to do what?

MR NICHOLAS:  As to confidentiality in relation to non-

disclosure of the contents of this material.

DAWSON J: Not to divulge the letters.

TOOHEY J:	How is that to be handled within the framework of the application?
MR NICHOLAS:	That we would ask the Court to receive the

letters and make no reference to their contents

during the course of the discussion. We certainly

would not propose to divulge the details of them

during the course of our submissions, Your Honours,

but we certainly want Your Honours to have them

read.

DAWSON J: There is an understanding amongst counsel and you

are asking us not to say anything that would

divulge the contents.

MR NICHOLAS:  Exactly, Your Honour. So on that basis,

Your Honours, may we hand up to you a copy of an

affidavit of Brett Peter Gorman, sworn 2 July 1991,

to which the letters are annexed.

BRENNAN J: It would be as well, I think, if only three

copies were delivered to us, so that we can

redeliver those three copies, if need be, during

any adjournment. Perhaps we could be told who is

the counsel or the party who has formal custody of

these documents.

MR NICHOLAS:  I will leave that to my friend, Your Honour.

MR MASON: I have copies of this affidavit and as indicated,

we have no objection obviously to the document

being tendered, but we ask it be received as a

confidential exhibit. It has been treated that

status hitherto in the proceedings and we would ask

that, subject to any further order of the Court,

that be the basis upon which it be received.

14/2/92

BRENNAN J:  Would there be any reason why we should not read

it and redeliver it to you immediately?

MR MASON:  None at all.

BRENNAN J: Then let us have three copies. We shall read

this now, Mr Nicholas.

Miss Associate, would you return these to

counsel. Yes, Mr Nicholas.

MR NICHOLAS:  Your Honours, the sending of those letters

resulted in charges being brought against the

accused, the details of which are set out at

page 11 of the white volume. That also was a

matter that the Magistrate had before him.

Your Honours, the ma ~er at page 11 also records

the handwritten not f the Magistrate as to what

he understood his o ~r to achieve. As best as we

can read it, at page 11, his writing reads this

way:

Interlocutory. The Court orders that in these

proceedings the anonymity of the alleged

victim be preserved and the victim be referred

to as "A".

And there are orders to similar effect - or rather, notes to similar effect in relation to the other

charges which appear in the following pages.

Your Honours will also appreciate that the

charge was brought under section 100 of the Crimes

Act and that section is set out in the white book

and a copy of it appears on page 5. Perhaps it is

convenient to take Your Honours to page 5, and also

to page 6, which set out the provisions relating to

blackmail as well as the extortion provision which

Your Honours see in section 100.

The application made before the Magistrate was

to the effect that the identity of the victim not

be published. That application resulted in an

order, the terms of which are set out on page 52 of

the white volume. The terms of it appear in other

places but page 52 is a convenient place. That is
under tab 6. At the foot of the page the

Magistrate dictates the order which has given rise

to these proceedings and Your Honours have it

there.

There are two other matters before leaving

this volume for the moment that we should point to, because it is indicative of what the understanding

and intention of the Magistrate was in making the

order and, more importantly, what everybody there

understood the order to mean. It is to be seen at

ABC 6 14/2/92

page 64, and page 64 records the proceedings on the

second day when my clients and my learned friend

Mr Sexton's client moved to have the Magistrate

revoke the order. At the top of page 64 the

Magistrate says:

Yes, what I did was tantamount to saying I

prohibit publication by anybody outside the

court.

He discussed or articulated by way of explanation his reasons for making the order in the way that he did and they are set out, Your Honours, at page 73,

if I could take you to them. The lines are not

numbered, but if I could bring you half-way down

the first paragraph on page 73 and read from there.

The sentence begins:

The application had been expressed to be based

upon grounds of, if I can now accurately

remember the precise terms, "grave public
disquiet, copy-cat crime bringing untoward

pressure on other prospective victims, and the

police force," but as I said I did not, I re-

express that, but as I see it I not only did

not grant the application and said I had no

power to prohibit publication but I based the
order I did make purely on the factor that

these were in the nature of blackmail cases.

That seemed to me to be quite clear in the

position they occupied in the Crimes Act under
the heading of extortion and very close to

another heading of blackmail.

Then if Your Honours would move past the next

paragraph and if I could read the next sentence:

Once an application is made to the Court, as

it was in this case it is my view, rightly or

wrongly that simply looking at the type of

offence makes it appropriate to seek to

protect identity of a victim.

Your Honours, it does seem that it was the

Magistrate's view that that was sufficient to

enable an order of the kind that he made to be

made.

BRENNAN J:  How are the victims being referred to in the

proceedings in the courtroom, by their full names

or as A, Band C?

MR NICHOLAS:  I think as A, Band C, Your Honours; by the

initials.

14/2/92

BRENNAN J:  Then a full and fair report of those proceedings

would simply reproduce what is heard in the

courtroom.

MR NICHOLAS:	Yes.
BRENNAN J:	The question is the manner in which the

proceedings should be conducted, not the

publication.

MR NICHOLAS:  To that extent, Your Honour, but

BRENNAN J: That is the relevant extent, is it not?

MR NICHOLAS: Yes, Your Honour, but it went further than

that, with respect. The terms of the order make it

very plain that there is to be no reference by

anybody, we would say, and that is quite clearly

intended to be, simply putting it in the

colloquial, a non-publication order. There was no

limitation on the scope of that order, as we read

it, with respect, and we would suggest that, from

the passage that we read from the Magistrate's

statement, that he was intending it to bring about

a situation where nobody, either inside or outside

the courtroom, could make any reference whatever to

that.

BRENNAN J:  Nobody outside the courtroom could make any

reference to it if it had not occurred inside the

courtroom.

MR NICHOLAS: Certainly, Your Honour, but what we are saying

is that the effect of the order that he made was

not in terms limited to the parties or to the

proceedings; it was of general application.

BRENNAN J: But to that extent it is a brutum fulmen, is it

not? What is the necessity for an order binding

people outside the courtroom?

MR NICHOLAS:	In due course, we will be submitting that there was simply no ground whatever to make this
kind of order in this kind of case; that it does
not fall within the special exceptions. There are
certainly no statutory warrant for the making of an
order of this kind and the courts make it very plain that the exceptions recognized by the common
law are very few in number and, indeed - - -

DAWSON J: Just so I am clear what we are talking about, are

you complaining of the fact that the victims were

only named by initials or are you complaining that

the order goes beyond that and that if anyone could

discover what lay behind the initials - that is the
identity of the persons concerned - they were

prohibited from publishing that - - -

14/2/92

MR NICHOLAS:  The later, Your Honour. I am sorry I did not

make myself clear. We are saying that the order

that is made is of - - -

DAWSON J: But if the order had been confined to an order

that the victims be known by initials or be

referred to by initials in the court, you would

have no complaint, if that was all that was

ordered.

MR NICHOLAS: 

We would, because we would say that in a case

of this kind there is simply not power in a
magistrate to make an order of this kind, absent

any evidence which would indicate necessity which
would enable a new category of exception to be

made.

DAWSON J: 

I seem to remember a case called Av Hayden, A,

B, C and D v Hayden in this Court.

MR NICHOLAS:	Your Honour, how it was presented to the Magistrate and how he approached it was
substantially similar to a blackmail case.

BRENNAN J: But the whole argument was presented on the

basis that this was an order which limited the

right of the press to report what had happened in

the courtroom, is that not right?

MR NICHOLAS: Yes, Your Honour.

BRENNAN J: But if what was happening in the courtroom was

limited to A, B, C and D, it was not a case of
limiting the press to publishing what happened in

the courtroom.

MR NICHOLAS:  I see what Your Honour is putting to me. We

say that one has to go back a step further, with

respect; that before a magistrate or indeed any

court would make an order, the effect of which was

to prevent the publication of evidence - and in

this case identity - - -

BRENNAN J: That is not the publication of evidence. It is

to prevent the divulging in evidence of the

identity.

MR NICHOLAS: But, Your Honour, the order in terms goes

further than that, we would suggest. It makes it

very plain that under no circumstances can there be

a publication by anybody, at any time, of the

identity of the victims. What we want to put to

Your Honours in due course is that absent any

statutory power to make that order, and there is

not any, and absent any principle of common law
which would justify such an order being made, then

9   14/2/92

there was no power to make it. But before we get

to that - - -

DAWSON J: It is not the order the Magistrate made. If you

look at the words you read out in handwriting, it

is that:

The Court orders that in the proceedings the

anonymity of the alleged victims be preserved

and the victim be referred to as "A".

That is a very confined order.

MR NICHOLAS: This is part of the problem, with respect.

The way the case has been conducted is in relation

to the terms of the order which are found at

page 52 and also, Your Honours - and we have set it

out also at pages 2 and 3 of the application book.

TOOHEY J: But, Mr Nicholas, can you test this by reference

to the way in which a witness gave evidence? The

witness who fell within the scope of this order

presumably gave evidence.

MR NICHOLAS:  I do not think that happened in fact,

Your Honour.

TOOHEY J: It was too early?

MR NICHOLAS: This was too early, yes.

TOOHEY J:  So it is probably only hypothetical, but does it

follow that the witness would give a correct name

and thereafter be referred to by initial, or that

the witness would be sworn in by an initial?

MR NICHOLAS:  I think it was contemplated, Your Honour, that

he would be sworn in by initial and thereafter

there would be no further reference to him. That

is how we understood it. But it never got that

far.

TOOHEY J:  No. But it is relevant to the questions put to

you by Justice Brennan as to whether or not the

order had the effect of prohibiting a report of
the details of what took place or rather whether

what was intended to take place would not itself

have given any indication as to the correct name of

a relevant witness.

MR NICHOLAS:  Your Honour, I wonder if I could ask the Court

for a moment's adjournment. I do not feel very

well at the moment and if I could have 10 or 15

minutes to - - -

10   14/2/92

BRENNAN J:  We will adjourn and stand this matter over and

call the next application.

AT 11.30 AM THE MATTER WAS ADJOURNED

UNTIL LATER THE SAME DAY

UPON RESUMING AT 11.57 AM:

MR NICHOLAS:  I am grateful to the Court and to my friend.

Your Honours, I had taken you to the terms of the

order that the Magistrate made in relation to

non-publication, that is at page 2 of the book.

Your Honours will appreciate that he also made

another order which appears on page 3 of the book,

namely the order in which he held that there was no

standing for the applicants, my client and the ABC,

to make the application or applications. That was

in relation to the second day's activities when an

application was made seeking to be heard to have

the Magistrate revoke his order. On the day on

which he made his order, as it happened, there were

representatives of the publishers who were there,

who put submissions to the Magistrate, and he later ruled that, in his view, they had no standing to be

there.

BRENNAN J:  One can see readily an argument in relation to

standing if the order was one which related to the
publication outside the court of the proceedings

that took place within the court. It may be that there are different considerations when the order is as to the manner in which court proceedings will

be conducted.

MR NICHOLAS:  Yes, Your Honour. On the stand that we take,

of course, we say that this order is of much wider

range.

BRENNAN J: Perhaps that is the first question you have to

address: what is the terms of the order, what is

its operation?

MR NICHOLAS:  Your Honour, we say it is plain that it

precludes the publication by anybody of any

reference to the victims.

DAWSON J:  You say that, Mr Nicholas, and you may be right.

I have looked at the handwritten order and the order which you referred to on page 2 and neither

of those seems to go as far as that to me.

11   14/2/92

MR NICHOLAS:	Your Honour, he does not make any limitation to the circumstances in which the reference will be
made.
DAWSON J:	He does not make any reference to reference; he

just says the victim will be referred to as A, C,

D.

MR NICHOLAS:  Yes, Your Honour, but it makes it very plain,

we would submit, that there can be no publication,

no disclosure - - -

DAWSON J:  It may be, but that is only because the

newspapers will not know who A, B, C, D and E were.

MR NICHOLAS:  But that is perhaps the point, with respect.

Our submission is that an order of that kind, if it has that effect, is just not open to be made in the circumstances in which it was in this case and the

authorities, we would submit, seem to be fairly

clear to the effect that a court, particularly a

court of this kind, has no power to make an order

binding of general application.

DAWSON J:  It can govern its own procedures, presumably. I

did make reference to A, B v Hayden. That was a

case in which the parties to an action were known

by initials. That was a case in which security was

involved. It was a case in which it was by consent

and that probably puts a different complexion on

it.

MR NICHOLAS:  We would say so, Your Honours. We would say

that the approach to be taken is that undertaken by

Mr Justice McHugh in the Police Tribunal case, and

we will hand up the volumes of authorities. There
were two principal cases of the Court of Appeal of

New South Wales which were relied upon by both

sides, it seems; one, Fairfax v Police Tribunal,

and the other, Attorney-General v Mayas, and it is

in relation to the Police Tribunal case that I want
to go.	May we hand up to you volumes containing

copies of the authorities to which we wish to

refer.

BRENNAN J: Yes.

MR NICHOLAS:  The Police Tribunal case, Your Honour, is

under tab 1 and if I could take you to the judgment

of Mr Justice McHugh which commences at page 474.

BRENNAN J: But this, again, is a publication of evidence

case, is it not?

MR NICHOLAS:  Yes, it is. Your Honour, the order in the

Police Tribunal case appears at page 474E:

12   14/2/92

The Tribunal ordered that, until another order

was made, the name of a specified person "is

not to be published in reports of these

proceedings nor in any material which would

serve to identify him or his place of abode".

Now, Your Honour, we appreciate that there may

be a distinction between orders preventing the
publication of evidence and orders preventing the
disclosure of identity but we have difficulty, with

great respect, and we would submit that the cases

have not made it clear as to whether a pseudonym

order, as this one has been described to be, has

the effect of a general order of non-publication.

Similarly, whether it really can be - - -

BRENNAN J:  It cannot be a case of non-publication. nature it is not a non-publication order. Of its

MR NICHOLAS: Indirectly it is, because if a newspaper or

anybody else, later on, was to publish, then

obviously - - -

DAWSON J:  If it found out the name and published it and

said A is so-and-so -

MR NICHOLAS: Yes, then one would run the risk of contempt.

DAWSON J:	Why?
MR NICHOLAS:	Because it could be expected that an order had

been made that it was perceived to be necessary for

the administration of justice that it should be

made and that the disclosure in those circumstances

may very well have the necessary tendency. And

that seems to have been the history where orders of

this kind - or the circumstances in which orders of

this kind have been considered in the past.

But, Your Honours, we would say that where -

let me bring you to it, Your Honours, that

Mr Justice McHugh at page 476 deals with the

approach to be taken, we submit, and at line G he

says this:

The fundamental rule of the common law is

that the administration of justice must take

place in open court. A court can only depart

from this rule where its observance would

frustrate the administration of justice of

some other public interest for whose

protection Parliament has modified the open
justice rule. The principle of open justice

also requires that nothing should be done to

discourage the making of fair and accurate

reports of what occurs in the courtroom.

Accordingly, an order of a court prohibiting

13   14/2/92

the publication of evidence is only valid if
it is really necessary to secure the proper
administration of justice in proceedings
before it. Moreover, an order prohibiting
publication of evidence must be clear in its
terms and do no more than is necessary to
achieve the due administration of justice.

The making of the order must also be reasonably necessary; and there must be some

material before the court upon which it can
reasonably reach the conclusion that it is

necessary to make an order prohibiting

publication.	Mere belief that the order is
necessary is insufficient.	When the court is

an inferior court, the order must do no more

than is "necessary to enable it to act

effectively within" its jurisdiction. Courts

have no general authority, however, to make

orders binding people in their conduct outside

the courtroom. Judicial power is concerned

with the determination of disputes and the

making of orders concerning existing rights,

duties and liabilities of persons involved in proceedings before the courts. An order made in court is no doubt binding on the parties,

the witnesses and other persons in the

courtroom. But an order purporting to operate

as a common rule and to bind people generally

is an exercise of legislative - not judicial-

power. Nevertheless, conduct outside the

courtroom which deliberately frustrates the

effect of an order made to enable a court to

act effectively within its jurisdiction may

constitute a contempt of court. But the

conduct will be a contempt because the person

involved has intentionally interfered with the

proper administration of justice and not

because he was bound by the order itself.	I
think that the above statement of the
applicable principles is in accordance with
the way in which this branch of the law has
developed.

Now, Your Honours, we say here that you have a

situation where an order was made in the teeth of

what Mr Justice McHugh had to say there.

BRENNAN J:  You say it, but it seems to me to be quite the

contrary.	Mr Justice McHugh was talking about
publication of what took place in court.	He was
speaking about people outside.	You continue to

refer to the effect, indirectly, of the order that

was made that bound the witnesses.

MR NICHOLAS: But, Your Honour, the flow-on from that is

direct enough, we would submit, and really to couch

an order in the terms in this case, we would say,

14   14/2/92

is a device which achieves the result for which we

contend.

BRENNAN J: It is not a device; it secures the anonymity of

the victims in the courtroom.

DAWSON J:  Who are not even going to be witnesses.

MR NICHOLAS: That is so, and - -

BRENNAN J:	What else is there to say?
MR NICHOLAS:	Your Honour, we are in a position where an

order has been made, the effect of which is to

preclude the publication of the identity of the

recipients of this letter and we want to come, in

due course - - -

DAWSON J: In a bail application, too.

MR NICHOLAS:  Yes, well it was in the context of the

commencement of committal proceedings, yes,

Your Honour. The consequence - and I think I am

repeating myself, with great respect,

Your Honour - - -

BRENNAN J:  The consequence is that your clients cannot

publish the names of those whose names they would

discover if this order had not been made.

MR NICHOLAS:  Yes.

BRENNAN J: But their sources of information that they are

seeking to tap here are the proceedings in the

court, and there just is not a source of

information. They are not being fettered in their

use of their sources of information.

MR NICHOLAS:  I accept that, with great respect, but that

begs the question as to whether or not the

Magistrate in the circumstances had the power to

make an order even of that kind. We wanted to come

to the second limb of our application as to the

question of power in a moment. I wanted to deal

first with the question of standing. It is in

relation to that that we say the grounds for

granting this application can be very clearly

found.

BRENNAN J:  If you are ready to argue the case for special

leave on the footing that the order is of the kind

that we have been discussing with you, then of

course you shall do so, but it will not be of much

assistance to us to have a discussion of the

principles derived from cases such as the cases
which deal with non-publication of evidence in

15   14/2/92

court because it is obviously a different class of

case.

MR NICHOLAS:  Your Honour, as a matter of substance we, with

respect, would say not because the outcome is that

there can be no - whether or not there is a

reference to it in court or not, there can be no

disclosure of matters which plainly enough do take
place in the courtroom. That then throws up, we
say, consideration of the legitimacy of the
exercise by the Magistrate of his power in the

context of the principles with which no doubt

Your Honours are well familiar. But for our part,

we would say that there just simply is no basis for

suggesting that the consequence that flows from the
making of this order really is less than the
consequence of an order directing the non-
publication of evidence because identity of the

victim, the circumstances in which the letter was

written and so on may very well become matters of

evidence during the course of the hearing. What

has happened is at the very threshold, disclosure

of those matters has been precluded.	We would say
- as I have said and as I have put to
Your Honours - - -

DAWSON J: It is not an uncommon occurrence, is it, in a

court? A witness is allowed to write his address

on a piece of paper, for various reasons and so on.

MR NICHOLAS:  Your Honour, perhaps it is not uncommon. The

circumstances in which it is done, no doubt, or in

which it is permitted vary considerably.	The
circumstances in which non-publication or

suppression orders - and we say this is one of
them - are very limited and are strictly defined.

The mere making of an order of this kind, in

circumstances where all the Magistrate has had

before him and says just the reading of the nature

of the offence is enough for me to exercise my

judgment that it ought to be made.	No attempt, we
would put to Your Honours, to make findings to the

effect that it was necessary for the effective

administration of his particular jurisdiction in
the course of these proceedings, and what has

happened, we put to Your Honours, is the Magistrate

has assumed that there may be some detriment to

somebody - he refers generally to the public - by

reason of the disclosure at this point of time of

the identity of these people.

Now, Your Honours, there is no case of which

we are aware which would support a magistrate in

such circumstances conducting himself that way. We

would say that it was entirely appropriate that the

interested publisher could come along and seek to

be heard as to why he should not make that order

16   14/2/92

and that the authorities make it plain, we say,

that he had standing to do that.

As to the question of standing, it comes about

this way, we would submit.	We would say it could
be not doubted that it is	a real interest of a

newspaper to disseminate information. That is its

business. That gives it the interest and that has

been recognized. Now, if a situation is about to

arise in which, in effect, the exercise of power

will deprive the newspaper - - -

DAWSON J: But that is the wrong approach, is it not,

Mr Nicholas. The courts are not there to provide

information for the newspaper, to provide the
material upon which they make their profits; the

courts are concerned with the administration of

justice and the administration of justice is best

served if it is in public. Now, that is why this

is a different situation. What was done by the

court here was entirely public.

MR NICHOLAS: Certainly, Your Honour, but the

DAWSON J:  And it is a byproduct of that that the newspapers

are able to derive the information which they seek.

MR NICHOLAS:  Yes, but a byproduct of it also is that should

the newspaper publish the information as to the

true facts, then it runs the risk of being liable

to contempt proceedings. Now, the consequence of
the order that is made, we say, has a direct

effect, and likely to be an adverse one, upon the

legitimate interests of a newspaper so much so as

to give it a standing to be heard in opposition to

the making of such an order. That situation seems

to be recognized by the Supreme Court of Western

Australia -

DAWSON J: These are all orders in relation to the

suppression of evidence.

MR NICHOLAS: That is so, Your Honour, yes, and for the

reasons I have put to you, with great respect, we

see no difference in substance between the

suppression of orders in relation to evidence,

whether it be a small part or a large part, or

suppression of publication in relation to identity

of people concerned because we would say that the

identification of people concerned are part and

parcel of the evidence.

DAWSON J:  Would it make a difference if the court itself

did not know the identity of, in this case, the

victim?

17   14/2/92

MR NICHOLAS: Well, it would be an extraordinary situation,

Your Honour.

DAWSON J:  No, it would not. the Magistrate. If the facts had been put to

He said it made no difference to

him what the identity was and the facts remained

known to the prosecutor and he conducted the case

on that basis. That was the basis on which the

Hayden case was conducted.

MR NICHOLAS:	Yes but, Your Honour, that was no doubt because it was accepted that there was a real
ground that there should be a departure from the
norm in the conduct of the case.
DAWSON J:	It could well have been in this case that the court was not informed of the identity, did not
wish to know.  I mean, for example, having read the
material, we could very well hear this application
without knowing who the identity of the victim was.

MR NICHOLAS: But, Your Honour -

DAWSON J:  I am just asking you would it make any

difference?

MR NICHOLAS: Perhaps not to the outcome of the matter, but

one does not know.

DAWSON J:  Would the newspapers then have standing to say

that the court should conduct its proceedings by

finding out and then divulging it to the

newspapers?

MR NICHOLAS:  What the position would be is that except in

extraordinary circumstances, the entirety of the

proceedings are conducted openly and the identity

of all concerned, parties, witnesses are all

matters which, according to the normal rules, would

be open. So Your Honour is posing, with respect, a

situation which is, we would say, extraordinary.

It may be quite common, but when the situation

comes about - - -

DAWSON J:  I was asking you what you would say about that

situation. Would you say that the newspapers then

had standing to make an application to the

Magistrate that he should not proceed on that basis but should proceed on some other basis which revealed the identity of the victim?

MR NICHOLAS: If the Magistrate - yes, I would, Your Honour.

DAWSON J:  Would you? You would take it as far as that.

MR NICHOLAS:  I would be bound to say that because if the Magistrate proceeded on the basis, the effect of

18   14/2/92

which was to preclude the publication of identity,
why, because the identity was not disclosed in the

proceedings, and in circumstances where - - -

DAWSON J:  Even though the only person in the courtroom who

knew the identity was the prosecutor.

MR NICHOLAS:  Yes, Your Honour. But that, we would submit,

is not the point. The point is that except in

extraordinary and circumstances justified by

necessity can there be a departure of the kind that

Your Honour is putting to me, we would say, and

that because of the consequences which flow from

that an interested person is entitled to have the

opportunity of putting submissions as to why such a

departure should not take place. We say that -

well, with respect, we are either right or wrong
about it - but we say that those cases which deal

with locus standi on the question of evidence are

directly in point in the situation that we are

concerned with here. If those are considered, they
demonstrate a very real conflict between the

different courts of appeal which would, we would

submit, invite the attention of this Court.

BRENNAN J: Mr Nicholas, I would, for my part, find your

argument very attractive if the order had been that

there was to be no publication of the names of the

victims in this case by any outside source except

by reference to A, B, C, D and so forth because

then the distinction which was founded on by the

majority of the Court of Appeal, namely the
pseudonym order as against a general suppression

order, may have been seen to be very insubstantial

when it comes to the question of locus standi. But
when the order relates to the conduct of the

proceedings itself, the manner in which the

proceedings should occur before the tribunal

itself, it seems to me to be a large step to say

that one can accord standing to somebody not a

party to the proceedings to intervene as to the

manner in which the proceedings themselves should

be conducted. Is there anything that you can

assist us on there? I know your argument, that it

is the same sort of problem from your point of

view, but is tnere any authority which would

indicate anything in relation to that, cases like

Scott v Scott or McPherson, do they have anything

to say about it?

MR NICHOLAS: Scott v Scott, not in terms, no, Your Honour.

The pseudonym order was considered in Leveller and

that was the one where the witness wrote the names

down on the piece of paper "Colonel B", and I think

the newspaper revealed the identity subsequently.

But in Leveller the court dealt with the situation

where the terms of the order were in these

19   14/2/92

proceedings - and we have Leveller here,

Your Honours.	So it was very plainly limited to
the conduct of the proceedings.	We, for the

reasons we put, Your Honour, draw that distinction

in this case because we say it was never intended

that this order, the Magistrate's order in this

case, should be so limited. Leveller, Your

Honours, is under tab 8. If I can bring you to

page 447 which is the speech of Lord Diplock. At

line E he says this:

On the third day, November 10, counsel for the prosecution made an application that the next witness whom he proposed to call should, for his own security and for reasons of national

safety, be referred to as "Colonel A" and that

his name should not be disclosed to anyone.

The magistrates, upon the advice of their

clerk, ruled, correctly but with expressed

reluctance, that this would not be possible
and that although the witness should be
referred to as "Colonel A," his name would
have to be written down and disclosed to the

and the proceedings were adjourned.

court and to the defendants and their counsel. witness

The hearing was resumed -

Your Honours see, and then the introduction of

Colonel B was described in the next paragraph.

The prosecution called, instead of

"Colonel A," another witness. Counsel for the

prosecution applied for him to be referred to

as "Colonel B," and that his name be written

down and shown only to the court, the

defendants and their counsel. This was said to

be necessary for reasons of national safety;

risk to "Colonel B's" own security was not
relied on. Counsel for the defendants raised

no objection to the course proposed; the

magistrates assented to it and the witness then

gave evidence in open court. He was throughout

referred to as "Colonel B"; his real name was

never mentioned. For the purposes of the
proceedings for contempt of court with which

the Divisional Court and now your Lordships

have been concerned, it must be taken, although

initially there was conflicting evidence as to

this, that the magistrates gave no express

ruling or direction other than that the witness

was to be referred to in court as "Colonel B"

and not by his real name and that his real name

was to be written down and disclosed only to

the court, the defendants and their counsel.

20   14/2/92

Then the situation which gave rise to the

contempt proceedings was described by His Lordship

at line Con the next page:

In the issue of "Peace News" for November 18 these two pieces of information about

"Colonel B" elicited in open court were

published; and in the issue for December 16, the name of "Colonel B" was disclosed and an

account was given of his military career.

And then further disclosure is referred to. At the foot of the page, line H:

it is not disputed that the disclosure of
"Colonel B's" identity by the appellants was

part of a campaign of protest against the

Official Secrets Act. It was designed, no

doubt, to ridicule the notion that national

safety needed to be protected by suppression

of the colonel's name. The only question for

your Lordships is whether in doing what they

did the appellants were guilty of contempt of

court.

Page 449D His Lordship focuses on the effect of the

ruling:

The only "ruling" that the magistrates

had in fact given was that the witness should

be referred to at the hearing in their court

as "Colonel B" and that his name must be

written down and shown to the court, the

defendants and their counsel but to no one

else. That it was also the only ruling that

they intended to give is apparent from the
fact that they had been advised by their clerk

that it was the only ruling that they had

power to give, however much they might have
preferred to give a wider one. None of the

appellants committed any breach of this

ruling. What they did, and did deliberately,

outside the court and after the conclusion of

"Colonel B's" evidence in the committal

proceedings, was to take steps to ensure that

this anonymity was not preserved.

Your Honours, we say, and perhaps ultimately it is

a matter for construction, as we have said before,

that the order that the Magistrate made, and about

which we are concerned, is not in terms so limited. the Magistrate made it plain - and I think the reference is at the top of page 64 of the white

book, the additional volume - that what he was

doing was tantamount to - and I will be accurate

about it, Your Honours - he says:

21   14/2/92

what I did was tantamount to saying I prohibit

publication by anybody outside the court.

There is no doubt that that was what he was invited

to do and that is why we are taking time to draw

the distinction, Your Honours, and that is why we

are submitting to you that the way the matter has

been dealt with all along as though it operated

with much wider effect than the type of order that

was the subject of discussion in Leveller.

Just pausing, with great respect, on that, one

can take the Court to the authorities, if

necessary, in a moment but -

BRENNAN J: That is the argument that you put that is put

there by Mr Rares, that you are not going to be

allowed to see the court process.

MR NICHOLAS:	Yes.
BRENNAN J:	So that you are being prohibited from reporting court process.

MR NICHOLAS: Exactly.

BRENNAN J: That might make something of a difference.

MR NICHOLAS: But, Your Honours, that is the difficulty,

with great respect. The discussion, if I might say

so, throws up what is a real problem as to
endeavouring to categorize the type of order made

in a given case. For example, the Court is

familiar with circumstances where in camera orders

are made; obviously that is not this kind. There

are occasions where a general non-publication order

is made, the kind that was found to be unlawful in

the Police Tribunal matter. There are pseudonym

orders - what I am endeavouring to say is that the

argument throws up the difficulty in identifying or

categorizing the type of orders which may be made
in a particular situation.	The pseudonym orders
one knows about.	One knows of the cases where they

are justified as having the sufficient

characteristics of necessity. The blackmail cases,

the national security and informants are the

exceptions to the rule.

The next category, perhaps, are non-

publication orders purportedly directed to those
present in a courtroom and our submission is that
perhaps the scope of an order, particularly a
pseudonym order, may, depending on its terms, be

equivalent to a general non-publication order

binding on everybody, as we say this one appears to

be and certainly was intended to be.

ABC 22 14/2/92

Your Honours, an illustration of recent consideration of such an order is Rockett v Smith,

which is in the Queensland Full Court, decided in

March 1991, and it is under tab 6 of the volume

that we handed up to you. I can go quickly to it.

On page 2 of the judgment of Mr Justice McPherson,

which is about four pages in from the commencement

of the tab, the page numbered 2 at the top of the
page, at the foot of the page His Honour describes

the orders:

Because of the way in which the matter

developed in the proceedings below, his

worship's rulings extend over several pages of

the transcript, making it necessary to

summarise their effect. He ruled: (1) that

the first of the witnesses who gave evidence

should be known as Miss A; (2) that details of

her identity should not be disclosed in court;

(3) that she should write her true name and

address on a piece of paper to be handed to

the magistrate; and (4) that any report made

or published concerning the proceedings should

not reveal the name or other identifying

particular of that witness.

Your Honour, we would say that the effect of the Magistrate's order in this case is in substance

the same as the fourth order made there. The

Queensland court, in this case, held that such an

order was invalidly made. I only take Your Honours

to that by way of illustration of the types of

orders which are sometimes made and then the

difficulties which arise when they are.

We put now to the Court that a very good

reason why leave should be granted in this

application is to enable there to be an opportunity

for considering authoritatively whether or not in

truth there are different categories and, if so,

the scope of the power and the circumstances in

which they should be made. If we are correct in

what we say as to the effect of this order, then it

throws up, of course, the question of our standing,

we say. It is in relation to that matter that I

wish to make the following submissions.

DAWSON J: This must be a borderline case, must it not -

that is not necessarily against you - in relation
to special leave because here it is not the

identity of a witness, it is certainly not evidence

itself that is being suppressed, the identity of

the victims was not even necessary to determine

anything that the Magistrate had to determine, he

did not need to know the identity, so really you

would say, I suppose, if you want to test the

principles, this is a good case to test them with.

23   14/2/92

MR NICHOLAS:  We do indeed because, Your Honour, can I

illustrate it this way. If it was a blackmail

case, the justification for non-publication of the

victim is because the secret will be out and the

damage that the blackmailer sought to do may well

be achieved, the disgracing -

DAWSON J: That is on the one side; on the other side, if

the victim is called as a witness, as it was in the

Queensland case - I gather they were victims, were

they, called as witnesses?

MR NICHOLAS:  Yes, that is right, Your Honour.

DAWSON J: They should not be able, in testing their

evidence, to hide behind anonymity. That may raise

a question about the credibility of their evidence.

MR NICHOLAS: Indeed.

DAWSON J:	And that is all, of course, concerned with the administration of justice. But none of that arises
in this case. There is no particular reason for
the administration of justice why the identity of the victims in this particular case should be revealed. It would be irrelevant.

MR NICHOLAS: But, Your Honour, we would put it, with

respect, the other way, that a court would not

approach it on the basis that there is no reason

why their identity should not be revealed; a court
would approach it on the basis that unless it is

necessary that they should not be revealed - - -

DAWSON J: In any balancing process there is absolutely

nothing on one side. This is not against you. All

I am saying is it is a borderline case. Really,

what you have to say is that the real reason why

this information should be revealed is because the

various media interests want it to be. They have a

right to know, you know, that sort of proposition.

MR NICHOLAS: They, along with everybody else; it is not

limited simply to the proprietors of newspapers.

BRENNAN J: There are three questions, are there not: one

is your locus standi to raise the question; the

second is the power to make the order, and the

third is whether, in the circumstances, the order

should be made?

MR NICHOLAS: Yes, Your Honour.

BRENNAN J:  In relation to your locus standi, you say that

you have a function to perform in reporting

proceedings; you are denied access to some of the

court's records, namely that part which contains

ABC 24 14/2/92

the name of the victim, and that is sufficient,

combined with the effect of the order, to give you

standing to come here and complain.

MR NICHOLAS:	Yes, Your Honour.
BRENNAN J:	The second is that you say the Magistrate has no

power to make an order of this kind in a case of

this kind, it not being within the recognized

category of cases.

MR NICHOLAS:  Yes, Your Honour, and no statute.

BRENNAN J:  And no statute. The third is that you say that

on the merits of this case there is no reason why

an order had to be made in these terms.

MR NICHOLAS:  Yes, that summarizes it, with respect.

Your Honour, can - I am sorry, I interrupted

Your Honour.

BRENNAN J:  No, I just wanted to know if there was anything

more than that that you wish to say.

MR NICHOLAS:	No, that is the essence of it, Your Honour. Could I just add, on the question of locus standi,
as to why this case is a very good vehicle for leave and for leave which would look at the
question of locus standi. It comes about this way,
with respect.  On the present state of things in
this country, Your Honours, you have this
situation: in a decision of the Full Court of the Chief Justice and Justice Nicholson held that a
newspaper proprietor in circumstances similar to
these had standing, and that is the decision of re
Bromfield, which is under tab 4 of our volume. I
do not take you to it now; I just give you that
reference, with respect. But what it illustrates
is this, and we say a state of real confusion in
the various courts about this question. The
at the point of time when a magistrate is deciding situation now seems to be reduced to this, that as
whether or not to make an order of this kind one
has the majority decision in the West Australian case saying that the newspaper proprietor has
standing, and one obviously has Mr Justice Kirby in our case saying he has too. On the other hand, the
dissenting judges, Justices Mahoney and Hope in our
case, Mr Justice Rowland on the other say he has not.

DAWSON J: They say he has not in a case of this sort. They

differentiate cases which ..... evidence.

MR NICHOLAS: Certainly, Your Honour, I am grateful for

that. Come down to the next step: the circumstance

25   14/2/92

in which the proprietor applies to the Magistrate

who made the order to revoke that order. That was

denied us in this case as well. The situation on

the authorities seems to be this, that we have the

majority in the West Australian court, we have

Mr Justice Kirby in this case, and we have also the

majority, namely Justices McHugh and Glass, in the

Police Tribunal saying that there would be standing

to seek revocation of the order.

The next step, it seems to me, that all agree

that a proprietor has standing before a superior

court to have a magistrate's order reviewed. That

then, of course - the resolution of those questions

will necessarily, we will be putting, involve

consideration of the operation of the principles of

natural justice such as have been recently

illuminated in this Court in Haoucher v Department

of Immigration and Annets v Mccann and of the kind,

we would say, that a proprietor clearly has the

sort of interest which would entitle it to be heard

in the way for which we contend.

So, Your Honours, the situation is one which

clearly calls for consideration at an authoritative level, we submit. We would say that that in itself

would be sufficient ground to warrant the granting

of this application, if only on that matter. Those

are the matters, Your Honours.

BRENNAN J: Mr Sexton.

MR SEXTON:  If the Court pleases. Your Honours, there is,

as far as we can see, a total identity between the

interests of the applicants in these two matters

and except for one small point that I will come to,

we have treated it as a joint exercise and I would

adopt the submissions that have been put by my

learned friend, Mr Nicholas, and I will not repeat

those, Your Honour.

There is the one point that I would refer

Your Honours to which is a section from the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act, which is contained in that smaller volume of materials at

page 8 behind tab 3, and that section is section 27

of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983

which refers to the duty of the Corporation to

establish a -

service for the broadcasting and televising of

news and information -

and to actually -

broadcast and televise ..... sessions of news

and information relating to current -

ABC 26 14/2/92

affairs. Your Honours, we do not say that it would

be necessary that there be such a section for

either my client or Mr Nicholas' client to have

the kind of interest that has been put forward
here, but we do say that it underlines the interest
that the media have in the availability for
publication of the information and the evidence
that is before a court in any given proceedings,

unless it is contrary to the administration of

justice. And it is that question, whether or not

it is contrary to the administration of justice,

that we say is the question on which the media, and perhaps even a member of the public, is entitled to
be heard and that it is not entitled, of course,

because of that interest, to any particular

determination of the question but it is, we say,

entitled to be heard and that goes to the question

of standing and, we say, underlines the interest

that is present and that the cases on standing - I

will not take Your Honours to those - particularly

refer to.

Your Honours, that is the only point on which

I wish to add to the submissions that have been

made by Mr Nicholas, which we adopt otherwise in

their entirety. If the Court pleases.

BRENNAN J:	Mr Solicitor.
MR MASON:	Your Honours, in our submission the courts sit to

administer justice, not to provide news. The

parties in proceedings, particularly criminal

proceedings, set the issues and it is in the

context of those issues that the court has inherent
or implied powers and duties to take appropriate
steps to ensure that everything that is necessary

for the interests of justice is done.

Your Honours, there is no right to access to

every piece of information surrounding a case.

Much as the newspapers, or anybody else perhaps,

might love to know what is in a judge's notebook,

that does not create any right to access to that

information.

In the present case, the Magistrate drew a

deliberate distinction between a non-publication

order, which was what was initially sought and

refused, and a pseudonym order which he found, and

was said correctly to have done, in the context of

the blackmail principle which was not really in

dispute in these proceedings.

My learned friend, Mr Nicholas, took you to I

think page 64 of the white material where, in the
course of some exchange, the Magistrate said at the
top of the page:

27   14/2/92

Yes, what I did was tantamount to saying I

prohibit publication by anybody outside the

court.

DAWSON J: That can be read two ways, obviously.

MR MASON:  If one looks just at the bottom of the previous

page he could as well have been picking up what was

being put in argument. The only thing that has

ever been under challenge in these proceedings was

the pseudonym order. The question of access to

court records was never sought nor denied in these

proceedings. If one goes to the original summons

for relief at page 2 of the application book, the
orders challenged are set out, and those orders are

the pseudonym order and the refusal of standing in

an application to vary that order.	If one then
goes to the notice of appeal - - -

BRENNAN J: But in reality, if the pseudonym order that

appears at page 2 is to be given effect, it must

operate either to preclude access to the charge
sheet or to prohibit publication of the charge

sheet.

DAWSON J:  If you look at the decision in the Leveller case,

you would not read that and then happily go out and

reveal the name of the victim in this case, would

you?

MR MASON:  The way these orders operate is through the general operation of the law of contempt.

BRENNAN J: Yes.

MR MASON:  And just as a person will be guilty of a contempt

for publishing prejudicial voir dire evidence, or

evidence that has been held to be received in

camera, the way that occurs is through the general

principles of the law of contempt because that
person has done an act which is calculated, or

intended, or has the effect of interfering with the

course of justice.

BRENNAN J: But there is a double aspect to it, is there

not? One is the conveying of information which is

on the public record to the public, and the second

is whether, in the manner of a conveyance, a

contempt of the court is committed. In relation to

both of those matters, why is it that media

interests cannot be said to have standing?

MR MASON:  As to contempt, the question -

BRENNAN J: Perhaps you might like to answer that question

at 2 o'clock, Mr Solicitor.

ABC 28 14/2/92

AT 12.53 PM LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT

UPON RESUMING AT 2.00 PM:

BRENNAN J: Yes, Mr Solicitor.

MR MASON:  Your Honours, the proceedings in the local court

were involved with an application for bail.	As is
recorded at the bottom of page 15 of the application book:

Mr Ho was provided with a written copy of the

charges in accordance with the Justices Act

s.41(1).

That is referred to on page 16 of the other volume

of papers provided by my learned friend, where the

Magistrate asked the prosecutor whether the

defendant had been served with a copy of the

charges. Your Honours, in our submission the

orders which were the subject of challenge are

those set out on pages 2 and 3 of the application

book and they were the pseudonym order and the

order holding that there was no standing to make an

application to discharge that.

The question of access to the charge sheet and

whether that was covered by the pseudonym order

simply has not been an issue; not only not an issue

in the supreme court, but not really an issue in

the local court either, because there was no

application made for access and for the court to

determine the case as if that were a relevant issue

would involve an exploration of evidentiary matters

such as whether, in fact, this document forms part

of the court record, whether a member of the public

has a right to access to that as part of the court

record. What we do know, in our submission, is

that at the stage when the order was made, and at

all subsequent times, there had been no disclosure

in the court of the names of the victims and the

form and operation of the order was, and was no

more than, an order that in the proceedings the

victims be named by reference to a cipher or

pseudonym.

In our submission, this was an order directed solely at the conduct of the proceedings and it

just cannot be said that the applicants have any
special standing or in any way it specially

affected them more than any other member of the public. As I submitted earlier, the basis upon

which they could be affected by the order was

29   14/2/92

through the operation of the law of contempt which,

at least as regards a person with knowledge of the

making of the order, if they did something which

frustrated it or interfered with it, could be held

guilty of a contempt.

BRENNAN J: But that to the test of a case pending before a

magistrate when both the prosecutor and the

defendant agree that it should be held in camera

and there is no justification for holding it in

camera. Do the media have any locus standi to seek

a review of the order?

MR MASON:  Does one, if I might ask, assume that that order

deprived them of jurisdiction or was it an order

within jurisdiction, or does it not matter to

Your Honour's question?

BRENNAN J: For the purpose of determining locus standi, I

should not have thought it would have mattered

whether it was within or without, but take it

either way.

MR MASON:  The submission certainly is that the media nor

anybody else has no right before the court below to

challenge that order. There is no issue that there

is a right to seek prerogative relief and any

person with a sufficient interest may seek it and,

as was held in this case, the media interests did

have a sufficient standing to challenge it in the

superior court. But the actual order, the making

of the order, could not be any denial of procedural

fairness to the media simply because it operated in

one sense against the whole world. It was an order

made for the conduct, and in the course of the

conduct of proceedings between A and Band, like

any other procedural or evidentiary ruling or step

taken, it was a matter affecting in a direct sense
only A and Band, in an indirect sense, the whole

world, but via the law of contempt.

BRENNAN J:	Am I right in understanding you to say that there is no question as to the locus standi of the
present applicants to seek prerogative relief?
MR MASON:	That is correct, and it was so found below -

DAWSON J: Yes; what is the locus?

MR MASON:  The application was to seek to have quashed

orders which contained errors of law or exceeded

jurisdiction.

DAWSON J: Yes, I know that is what they sought to do. What

is the interest?

14/2/92

MR MASON:  The interest so held was that the media had a

special interest - - -

DAWSON J: That is just qualifying it. What is the

interest?

MR MASON:  The interest, in one sense, it flowed from their

capacity to publish and their desire to publish.

But to say they had locus says nothing - - -

DAWSON J: That says something as to their motivations, but

what is the interest?

MR MASON:  They were affected by the order in the sense that

the whole world - - -

DAWSON J:  They did not find out what they wanted to know,

but what is the interest?

MR MASON:  I can only say that that is not in issue. It was

not an issue below and I would not be wanting to

advance anything to the contrary or in support of

the proposition of there being an interest. But

certainly at the hearing, as I think the Magistrate

said, that it could become like Ben Hur if one

member of the media has an interest, so too would

everyone, and presumably it would be an interest

that would demand a right of separate hearing and

why stop at the media?

DAWSON J: That is right. If it is in the interests of the

administration of justice, which is the only

interest which is really relevant, everyone has the

same interest.

MR MASON:  Your Honours, there is a circularity, in our

submission, in the applicants' reasoning. They are

claiming an interest flowing from, in effect, a

wrong done to them or something giving rise to a

denial of natural justice, and yet the very

universality of the ruling would deny any

obligation to give a hearing on the principle that

you do not give a hearing if you have to give it to

the whole world.

This case really was a case on a question of

fact. The relevant principle was not in issue and

does not appear to be in issue even at this point

of time. A test was stated by Mr Justice Mahoney

for the majority at pages 94 to 96 in the

application book where, quoting from the Fairfax

case, page 94 line 30, Mr Justice Mahoney said:

the principle of open justice required that

"an order of a court prohibiting the

publication of evidence is only valid if it is

really necessary to secure the proper

31   14/2/92

administration of justice in proceedings

before it" -

The top of page 95 that was stated to be the

relevant test. By way of a sort of sub-test or

really an exegesis of that principal test, it was

common ground below and it would appear here that

within a category of so-called blackmail cases it

is certainly open to a court, in applying that test

of "really necessary to secure the proper
administration" to reach the view that a blackmail

victim may be referred to through the use of a

pseudonym. If one turns to the judgment of the
trial judge at page 11 firstly, and then page 17,

page 11 about point 4, he held that:

based on what I know of the facts in the

instant case I am unable to draw any

distinction of significance between the two

offences.

At the bottom of page 17, line 25, he held:

There is, in my view, ample material here upon

which the Magistrate could form the view that

this case fell within the classic blackmail

type of situation-

Now, Your Honours have seen the letter. The

suggestion is that this is what is said to be a

pure extortion case, that in this situation there

was a threat to do something and a threat to

publish the doing of that. So it is clearly within the blackmail category; clearly capable of being so

found, as a matter of fact, and clearly, as the judge at first instance and the majority found,

capable of falling within the general principle,

which does not appear to be in dispute, that

closure of the court is only appropriate if it is

really necessary for the attainment of the ends of

justice.

Your Honours, the suggestion by my learned

friend that there is a discrepancy between various
decisions of full courts within this country is

not, with respect, a sound one.

The Rockett case,

to which reference was made, in the Queensland Full

Court involved a suppression order. That is

apparent from page 8 of the judgment where, in
stating the crux of his reasoning,

Mr Justice McPherson said near the top of the page: Applying these principles to the present case, I have come to the conclusion that the magistrate in the present case had no power to make an order binding not only parties, witnesses and others who might be present, but

ABC 32 14/2/92

also members of the public outside the court

room, not to publish a report -

The Bromfield case, the one in the West Australian

Full Court, is also a non-publication order or a

suppression order. The Chief Justice Malcolm's

judgment at page 5 refers to the order in question

as being "a suppression order" which -

was made prohibiting the publication of the

names of the accused persons, the charges

against them - - -

DAWSON J: But it is put against you that this is tantamount

to a suppression order because you could not

really, without running a real risk of contempt of

court, go out and publish the names of the victim

if you found out, for instance, what it was.

MR MASON: 

Certainly, if you were aware of the making of the

order. There may be questions of mens rea if you
published that without knowing of the order, but

the majority held that there was a formal and a

real distinction between an order made for the

conduct of proceedings which takes its effect
derivitively through the law of contempt and an

order made against third persons.

DAWSON J: That has an immediate appeal, but I am not so

sure that on reflection it is a valid distinction.

MR MASON:  In my submission, it was a distinction drawn even

in the Fairfax case itself by Mr Justice McHugh who

approved the Leveller decision and at page 478 of the report approved the blackmail case, Socialist

Workers, in England where the use of pseudonyms had

been used.

In our submission, what the applicant really is seeking to do - and he has not come out directly

to do this - is to attack the validity of the

blackmail line of cases which, unless challenged -	in my submission they do not appear to be directly
challenged - are capable of supporting, on a
factual basis, the orders that were made in this
case.

As to the suggestion that the case is a

suitable vehicle for determining the question of

locus standi to complain about the making of such

an order, we submit that it is clearly correct

because if it were otherwise, any person could

complain about any aspect of the procedure in court

such as an in camera hearing or a voir dire hearing

if it affected that person's interest or wished to

publish.

33   14/2/92

DAWSON J:  In relation to locus standi do you draw any

distinction between the order here and a

suppression order?

MR MASON:	Oh yes, and that distinction was drawn in the court below and in the decision of
Mr Justice McHugh in the Police Tribunal case, that
a suppression order, because it does speak against
third parties and operate directly upon them, will
give rise to a right in a person who is directly
affected to seek to move to set it aside.

DAWSON J: It depends on what the right is, the interest.

MR MASON:	The interest in point of - a formal answer to that question is the interest is that they are
directly the subject of an order and that, in a
sense, is sufficient to create the interest.

DAWSON J: Well, only in the sense that the rest of the

public is. Only in the sense that everyone is the

subject of the order.

MR MASON:  If the order is directed against everybody, that

certainly is correct, yes. Your Honours, we would

also say in considering the question of whether

this is a suitable vehicle, this is a case in which

there has been a plea of guilty, the man in

question is coming up for sentence, I think, in April of this year and it is an application for

judicial intervention in the criminal process which

this Court has always set its face against

permitting. And to say that in one sense it is an

application by a third party to a criminal

proceeding for a declaration that it has a right to

intervene, not only at the bail stage - - -

DAWSON J:  I am not sure that I understand the - is this

going to hold up the criminal procedure?

MR MASON:  No, no, it is -

DAWSON J:  What happens if the man pleads guilty and is

sentenced, does this then become academic?

MR MASON:  In a sense it is academic. Mr Justice Kirby, at

the very end of his judgment, made it plain that he

was not, in effect, disposed to make orders other

than orders remitting the matter to the local

court. Now, what could well happen is that if this

Court granted special leave and upheld the appeal, the criminal process involving Mr Ho would be completed and presumably the local court or the

district court would be directed to engage in some

academic exercise to vindicate the applicants'

position.

14/2/92

BRENNAN J: It need not necessarily be academic, because it

could be designed to have the order that was made,

and which is referred to on page 2, removed and

thereby leaving it open to the media, if they saw
fit to do so, to publish at that stage the names of

the alleged victims who were dealt with in the

court.

DAWSON J: If they could find it out.

MR MASON:	There would be no proceedings to which it would be appertinent because nothing further would be
happening in those proceedings which would reveal
the name of the victim.

BRENNAN J: But I presume the proceedings that have been

held reveal the name of the victim, if only the

pseudonym order can be lifted.

MR MASON:	As was pointed out this morning
BRENNAN J:	It may not be frequent for the media to report

cases that are months old but - - -

MR MASON:  But here there is nothing to suggest that the

name of the victim has yet passed anybody's lips in

the proceedings.

DAWSON J: If the order were lifted - I am speaking

colloquially - would the media then be able to find

out by reference to the proceedings who the victim

was? I suppose they may know otherwise, anyway.

MR MASON:  They may know otherwise; whether they could get

it through access to the charge sheets will depend

upon the questions I referred to earlier as to

whether they are available to the public - - -

DAWSON J:	Anyway it probably is not entirely academic.
MR MASON:	But in terms of evidence there is, on my

understanding, no evidence now and no certainty

that evidence would be given as to the names of the

victims. The media has an interest, perhaps, in

wanting to get the name through the proceedings

because they can then publish a fair report.

Whether or not they know the names already, they

certainly have not published so one raises the

question, what is the - - -

DAWSON J:  Anyway if they know the names already and the

proceedings are completed, they can publish with

impunity as regards contempt, presumably.

MR MASON: Well, query, because it may be a question that

the need to make these orders, based upon the need
to enable victims to come forward, that need

35   14/2/92

continues because it is a vindication of an on-

going interest that the law has. It is not an

interest that is that of the particular victims in

this case. It is like saying, the case is over;

what is wrong with punishing a witness? The fact

is it discourages witnesses generally.

DAWSON J:	You may be right.
MR MASON:	So in my submission one is facing the prospect of

a futile exercise which ultimately involves a third

party's intrusion into an already overcrowded

criminal justice system.

BRENNAN J: 

Mr Jackson.

MR JACKSON: 

Your Honours, there are a number of matters

with which I wish to deal relatively shortly, in
the light of the submissions that have been made by

my learned friend, the Solicitor-General.

The first thing, of course, in considering

whether to grant special leave, is to identify the

nature of the order and, Your Honours, the precise

nature of it really appears from page 90 of the

application book where the Magistrate lists what he

did and you will see, at about line 4, he records

the fact that there was an application:

for an order prohibiting publication of the

details of the persons threatened ..... !

declined, as I expressed it, to make such an
order. I declined to do that in the absence

of statutory provision, therefore I did order

that in the proceedings in the court the

alleged victims be referred to -

et cetera, and Your Honours will see in that

paragraph and the next one and the following

paragraph that he does so specifically on the basis

that the case was or was akin to the blackmail

class of cases. Now, the difference between orders

of that kind and orders which operate against the

world, as it were, in terms to prohibit publication

is that the pseudonym orders operate directly only

in the courtroom against those directly involved in

the conduct of the proceedings. The public's

rights to be present at the proceedings and to

publish, whether for profit or otherwise, what

occurs are not directly affected and, Your Honours,

the non-publication orders operate much more widely

and prohibit the persons, generally speaking,

against whom they are made.

Now, it is not, with respect, a distinction

without a difference to say that one person, the

world, is bound as it were by one order but not

14/2/92

bound by the terms of the order in another and the

difference, we would submit, has been recognized in

the cases to which Your Honours have been referred

and which are referred to in the reasons for

judgment in the present case. But because the

orders in the present case are pseudonym orders,

one does not see a large range of questions sought

to be agitated on behalf of the applicants that

might otherwise be raised in other proceedings

presently being raised. And the case in the end is

concerned with one, or perhaps two, narrow points,

the first of which being whether the Magistrate had

power to make an order that the victims of a form of blackmail be referred to by letters and not by

their names.

Could we make two submissions in relation to that: the first is that the jurisdiction to make

orders of that kind in the interests of justice is well established and, Your Honours, could we refer

in that regard to Reg v Socialist Worker Printers

and Publishers Limited & Anor; ex parte Attorney- General, (1975) 1 QB 637, at pages 644 and 649 to

651. Your Honours have been referred to the case

already. It is referred to also in the Full Court
of the Federal Court, Your Honour the presiding

Judge being one of the members, in Reg v Tait,

(1979) 46 FLR 386 at 405.

BRENNAN J:	What is the principle, Mr Jackson?
MR JACKSON:	The principle is that which is referred to in

the Socialist Worker Printers case, (1975) 1 QB at

page 644, and perhaps I could take Your Honours to

that. Your Honours will see, in the paragraph

commencing E and going to the end of G, in

particular between F and G, the reason is that:

there is a keen public interest in getting

blackmailers convicted and sentenced, and

experience shows that grave difficulty may be

suffered in getting complainants to come

forward unless they are given this kind of

protection.

Could I just say, without going to the detail of
the material that was handed to Your Honours at the

start of the case, Your Honours might well imagine

that companies in the business that were the

subject of the threat might well, in some cases,

prefer to pay up and not to report it rather than
be in a position where the material of that kind is
put forward and the suggestion created for the

future that others might do the same thing. So

that is the principle that seems to underlie the

notion. But the principle may be a little wider in

the sense that it is not really limited just to

37   14/2/92

cases that are blackmail in the most strict and

narrow sense of the term.

Could I refer Your Honours to page 651 in the

same case and Your Honours will see in the first

new paragraph on that page there is, this is the

line just above letter C:

the exception_which deals with cases involving

secret processes -

and that is treated there as being analogous to it,

that is the nature - and it is put really on the

basis of a secret - as Your Honours will see in the

last sentence of that paragraph, and see too,

Your Honours, the passage on that page going down to the end of the paragraph between G and H.

To the same effect is the discussion in

another case in the Supreme Court in Queensland in

Reg v Judge Noud, ex parte McNamara (1991)

2 Qd R 86. That is, I hope, in the bundle.

BRENNAN J: It is No 5.

MR JACKSON:  Your Honours will see at page 88 that

Mr Justice Demac agreed with the reasons for

judgment of both other members of the court and
then, at page 106 Your Honours will see a

discussion commencing at about line 12 of the ambit

of the power. The discussion goes on that page and

through to the next page and the passage of perhaps

particular significance is between about line 20 on

page 106 to about line 3 on page 107.

If one could pause for a moment to turn to the

particular case, a case of extortion or demanding

money with menaces where publication is part of the

threat would seem to be, we would submit, within

the ambit of the power thus contemplated and the

justification for there being an exception of the

nature of the blackmail cases exception applies
with equal vigour.	Your Honours, we would submit

for the reasons advanced by our learned friend, the

Solicitor-General, that the particular case is

simply one of the application of the general

principle to a set of circumstances, not itself on

that ground meriting special leave.

May I proceed then to the question of standing. Your Honours, I hope I may be forgiven

for starting with a trivial aspect of it and that

is that whatever be the true situation as to

standing, the present applicants were fully heard

and failed. That that is so appears at pages 48 to

50. It is a narrative of what occurred, starting,

I think, on page 47, but if Your Honours were to

38   14/2/92

start at page 48, at line 11, Your Honours will see

from line 11 to line 16 there was an extended

argument, the events which occurred then go on

through that page, through the next page. Then at

page 50, about line 3, Your Honours will see what

occurred and, in particular, if one goes through

the whole of that paragraph in due course, about

line 12, argument along the same lines resumed, the

Magistrate remained unmoved, and so it went on.

Whatever be the true situation in another case, in

this case they were in fact heard and failed.

If one goes then to the more general question

relating to standing, there is no doubt that it has

been held that where a person has an interest in
publishing information derived from court
proceedings that the person will have standing to
be heard on applications concerning non-publication

orders and, Your Honours, no doubt of course the
order directly affects the person. That is the

Police Tribunal case and that is Bromfield, both of

them being cases of that kind. But where the order

does not prohibit or restrict publication in court,

that reasoning, we would submit, does not apply

because the interest in publishing what happens has

not been affected. In particular, an order that

certain persons be referred to by pseudonyms does

not prohibit or restrict publication of the

proceedings in court.	We would submit that the
only - - -

DAWSON J: Superficially that is so, but it does, in a

sense. The information is before the Magistrate in this case and it is information which he takes into account in reaching a decision and it is

information which is not publicly available.

MR JACKSON:  It is information which the Magistrate may

have, but not every piece of information which may

be in or before a court is a piece of information

which is made available to everyone, and on which

every person may make submissions to the court on

what should happen.	Your Honours, could I give an
example in that regard.	If one were to say that

media organizations, if one took them, of any other

person had a right to be heard in relation to

orders of this kind, there would seem no especially

good reason why such persons would not have a right to be heard on questions such as whether particular

affidavits should or should not be allowed to be

filed or whether particular documents were or were

not subject to privilege, such as the legal

professional privilege or the public interest

privilege or, Your Honours, why they should not be

heard or be able to re-agitate the question whether

evidence which had been ruled inadmissible was in

fact admissible, or vice versa.

39   14/2/92

I do not want to do a floodgates argument and

say it is all too hard, but the fact of the matter

is that there is not, we would submit, any

significant distinction between things of that kind

and things of the present. A line has to be drawn

and, in the ordinary course of events, what one

would think is that if there is a case of blackmail or something akin to blackmail, at the start of the case the person who is the victim can say - and you

have to really say it at the start of the case

because the horse has bolted otherwise - the

publication of this information, of my name, in

relation to this should not be permitted. Why

should the world, with respect, be heard on that

question.

So, Your Honours, what we would say, if I can

put it shortly in that regard, is that whilst

newspaper publishers and broadcasters might have a

legitimate interest in reporting the news, so far

as court proceedings are there, they do not have a

legitimate interest, we would submit, in making the

news. That is really what the argument seeks to

establish.

Could I turn them to the question of conflict

of cases. If one looks at the various judgments in

their factual and statutory context, we would
submit there not, in fact, any conflicts. If one

goes to in re Bromfield, the Western Australian decision, the decision in question was an order

which was made under section 101D of the Western

Australian Justices Act and Your Honours will see

that set out at page 11 of the Chief Justice's

reasons for judgment. That contemplated the making

of an order for non-publication. Could I go to

page 11 for just one moment. Section 101D is set

out in the middle of the page and Your Honours will

see that its terms are such that it says that if

the justice is of opinion that:

it is undesirable that any report of or

relating to the evidence or any of the

evidence given or tendered at the proceedings

before them should be published -

then a person who thereafter does it:

commits a breach of the Supreme Court and is

punishable accordingly by that Court.

There is a word or two missing there. It should be

"contempt", Your Honours, where it says "breach".

"commits a contempt of the Supreme Court and is

punishable accordingly". Now, Your Honours, it is

not very surprising that if someone who is a

publisher of newspapers is potentially subject to a

ABC 40 14/2/92

provision of that kind that they can come along and

say, in the particular case, there is no power to

make such an order.

The second thing is that if one goes to the

Police Tribunal case the majority held that the

media interest would have standing to oppose or

vary a non-publication order if the order were

valid and binding on the applicant, that is if the

applicant was directly affected by the order. This

is an order of a different kind, as I have

submitted already.

Could I also just say, in relation to a matter

raised by Your Honour Justice Dawson, that the

basis on which it has been held that there can be a

challenge in the superior courts to an order of the

kind in question - not of the kind in question but

to an order for non-publication - seems to be the

proposition that any member of the public has
standing to apply to challenge an order made
without jurisdiction, the extended jurisdiction to
apply for certiorari or prohibition or orders that

are similar to that, rather than the fact of the

media interest, such as it may be, in publishing

being germane to the exercise of the power whether

to grant it or not.

DAWSON J: That raises all sorts of interesting questions,

but do not let us go into them.

MR JACKSON:  Which the Court may have to resolve in an

appropriate case one day. So, Your Honours, our

submission is the case is not one that merits the

grant of special leave for the various submissions

which I have made.

BRENNAN J: Thank you, Mr Jackson. Mr Sexton, do you wish

to say anything?

MR SEXTON:  No, thank you, Your Honours.

BRENNAN J:	Mr Nicholas.
MR NICHOLAS:	Your Honours, the point my learned friend, the

Solicitor had to say, Your Honour Justice Dawson, I

think, raised the question with him what the

situation was where an in camera order has been

made. In Tait, to which my friend has referred

you, that case deals with an in camera order. It

is in the volume of the cases under tab 2, and at

page 407 the Court - it is a joint judgment of
Your Honour Justice Brennan and Justices Deane and

Gallop in the Full Federal Court - indicates, about half-way down the page that:

41   14/2/92

the foundation upon which the court has

acted -

in making an in camera order -

may be examined either by an appeal court or

by a member of the public who is able to
persuade the court to revoke or vary the order

prohibiting public access to that material.

And that would seem to indicate an interest

consistent with that which entitles any person to

challenge, in a superior court, that an order has
been made without jurisdiction. But the immediate
publisher in the circumstances of this and like

cases can take it a little bit further because the

interest, apart from the interest in relation to

the conduct of its business and the dissemination
of information of course is strengthened by the
prospect of its potential liability for contempt in

the event that a publication is made in

circumstances which bring about the problems to

which reference has been made. That is the

difficulty, and it is the present situation of what

we say is conflict of the kind that we indicated to

Your Honours this morning that poses this

situation: how can it be correct, one might
rhetorically ask, to accept a situation that a

newspaper proprietor has the standing to challenge

the order before a superior court yet has no

standing before the Magistrate in respect of the

same matter. And that is the question which

Mr Justice Kirby posed in this case, and correctly

answered it, we would submit with respect, and it

is the question which was posed and answered by

Chief Justice Malcolm and Justice Nicholson in the

Bromfield case. It would suggest, with respect,

that it is again consistent with what

Mr Justice McHugh had to say in the Police

Tribunal, one might expect, as a matter of common

sense, that the distinction ought no longer be

allowed to continue.

The only other matter - two matters -

Your Honours put to my friend the learned Solicitor
the question of whether or not, the criminal

process having been completed in this case, the

situation be academic. Clearly we say no. The

order obviously is of enduring effect and the

consequences will continue. The fact that the case

is over does not lessen the public's entitlement to

know about what has happened.

Finally, Your Honours, we, for the reasons

that we have put to you earlier, with respect,

maintain our submissions to the effect that an
extortion case of the kind we are dealing with here

42   14/2/92

is a substantially different matter from a

blackmail case and the considerations which would

go to justify an order being made, that is to say

the extension of the category, simply are not here.

Those are the matters, Your Honours.

BRENNAN J:  In this case the applicant sought relief by way

of certiorari to quash an order made by a

magistrate who was about to hear an application for

bail by a person accused of a series of offences of

demanding money with menaces. The order which was

impugned was designed to protect the names of the

alleged victims. The order was, and I quote:

I make orders that the victim in case

50:28722/1 will be referred to as "A"; in

relation to case no. 51:28722/2 the alleged

victim in that case will be referred to as

"B"; in relation to case 52:28722/3 the victim

will be referred to as "C"; in relation to

case 53:28722/4 the victim will be referred to

as "D"; in relation to case 54:28722/5 the

victim will be referred to as "E".

In terms, this order does not prohibit the publication of proceedings in the court but directs

the manner in which the proceedings shall be

conducted.

In the Court of Appeal a majority held that

the order was properly made and that the magistrate

was correct in holding that the present applicants,
who are respectively a newspaper publisher and the

Australian Broadcasting Commission, had no locus

standi to support a right to be heard in opposition

to the order made by the magistrate.

The jurisdiction to make a pseudonym order in

blackmail cases is conceded and the applicants'

attempts to distinguish the present case from the

case of blackmail is not likely to succeed. In the

present case, the considerations which justify the

making of an order in a blackmail case (as to which

see Reg v Socialist Worker Printers and Publishers

Ltd, ex parte Attorney-General, (1975) QB 637 at

644 and 651, and Reg v His Honour Judge Noud, ex

parte McNamara, (1991) 2 Qd R 86, at pages 106 to

107)   justify the making of an order.

There is not sufficient reason to doubt either

the jurisdiction to make the order made by the

magistrate or the correctness of the decision to

make it. Even if the question of locus is of some

importance, in this case the applicants were in

fact heard by the magistrate. The merits of the

case are such that this is not a suitable vehicle

43   14/2/92

for considering that question - that is, the

question of locus.

Accordingly, special leave will be refused.

MR MASON:  I ask for costs, Your Honour.

MR JACKSON: Also, Your Honour.

MR NICHOLAS:  I cannot say anything about that, Your Honour.

BRENNAN J: There will be an order for costs in both cases.

AT 2.47 PM THE MATTER WAS ADJOURNED SINE DIE

ABC 44 14/2/92