John Fairfax & Sons Pty Ltd v McRae

John Fairfax & Sons Pty Ltd, the proprietor of the Sydney Morning Herald, its editor, and a solicitor appealed to the High Court of Australia against their conviction for contempt of court by the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The contempt arose from the publication of a statutory declaration by one Alan Pierpoint Rigby, which detailed allegations of violent assaults by police officers upon him following his arrest. At the time of publication, three charges were pending against Rigby in a court of petty sessions, one of which was exclusively triable summarily.

The central legal issues before the High Court were whether the published material had a real and definite tendency to prejudice or embarrass the pending proceedings, and whether the Supreme Court possessed the jurisdiction to summarily punish contempts of inferior courts. The appellants argued that the publication did not have the requisite tendency to prejudice the specific charges, that the charges were not of a nature that would reach the Supreme Court, and that the Supreme Court lacked the power to deal with contempts of courts of petty sessions. The respondent contended for the broader jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to punish contempts of any court.

The High Court held that the Supreme Court of New South Wales did have the jurisdiction to deal summarily with contempts of inferior courts, overturning the previous decision in *Re Syme Ex parte Worthington*. This jurisdiction was seen as a historical aspect of the supervisory role of superior courts. However, the Court found that the published material, when considered in its entirety and in the context of the surrounding circumstances, including the recent announcement of a judicial inquiry into similar allegations, did not possess a real and definite tendency to prejudice the specific proceedings against Rigby. The Court emphasised that a mere tendency to create general prejudice against the police was insufficient and that summary jurisdiction for contempt should be exercised with great caution, requiring a clear practical reality of interference with justice.

Consequently, the High Court allowed the appeals and set aside the convictions for contempt. The Court concluded that the publication, while potentially critical of police conduct, did not, as a matter of practical reality, have a tendency to interfere with the due course of justice in relation to the pending charges. The Court also noted that the intention behind the publication, while not decisive, was a relevant consideration.