On Thursday (3/8/17) I was found guilty of contempt of court for exposing the scandal of Justice Clifton Hoeben giving a paedophile priest 3 months jail. I was also found guilty of breaching a suppression order for writing an article telling people that I had been charged for contempt. It was in effect the judicial officers of the NSW Supreme Court putting a suppression order on their own case.
The judgement by Justice Helen Wilson was a total hatchet job on me but what should concern every Australian is the precedent Justice Wilson has set in an attempt to whittle away the rights free speech and political communication of all Australians.
During the course of the matter I was ordered to write to every Attorney-General in Australia and serve them a Notice of a Constitutional Matter as it was my defence that I did not say what they claim I said and what I did say was political communication and it was protected by the implied freedom of political communication in the Australian Constitution.
The Notice of a Constitutional Matter gives the Attorney-Generals the opportunity to intervene and put arguments forward to protect the rights of all Australians. It is quite normal for none to intervene at the first hearing but more common that they intervene if it goes to appeal or the High Court of Australia.
Justice Wilson said at paragraph 51: “As the lack of interest in the argument by the Attorneys-General may suggest, the defendant’s confidence in the availability of a constitutional defence is misplaced.“ (Click here to read the judgment)
That is a scandalous comment by Justice Wilson given the matter was not at the appeal of High Court stage. It is true that no one intervened but the Federal Attorney-General and NSW Attorney-General wrote to me and said that if the case goes to appeal or the High Court they wanted to be notified as they would reconsider intervening. Also 4 other State Attorney-Generals said if the matter went to the High Court they wanted to be notified as they would also consider intervening then. If any of the Attorney-Generals do intervene will Justice Wilson change her judgement to read that there was a constitutional defence and her judgement to dismiss it was misplaced?
The major problem is if what Justice Wilson said is allowed to stand it will be used by other judges to wipe people’s claims of constitutional defences unless an Attorney-General intervenes which is scandalous. So the implied rights to free speech and political communication in the constitution are wiped unless you can get a Attorney-General to support you. Can anyone ever take Justice Wilson serious again?
One of the key defences that journalists and the average person rely regarding defamation claims and other laws when trying to expose government corruption is the defence of “implied freedom of political communication” as the High Court of Australia ruled in Lange v ABC in 1997. Say good-by to using the precedent Lange v ABC unless an Attorney-General is there to support you.
If the AG’s don’t intervene then it means that there is no constitutional issue. Every lawyer in the country would know that is total rot and question Justice Wilson’s competency as a judge which helps explain why Justice Wilson is sneakily trying to put a suppression order on the judgement.
(The background to this article can be read in previous posts by clicking here and here)
Suppression orders. The cover-up to keep everything from public scrutiny.
When the contempt matter against me started in February 2017 Justice Beech-Jones put a suppression order on a few elements such as not naming the judge and registrar in the matter. At no point did he put a suppression order on the whole case.
Justice Wilson already suppressed the names in the judgment so why the suppression order on the whole judgement? Obviously to hide her judgment from the Attorney-Generals and their staff who have already seen the transcript of the hearing when I sent it to them with the Notice of a Constitutional Matter.
At the hearing on May 4 I asked Justice Wilson to review the suppression orders with the view of having the limited suppression orders lifted as there is no exceptional circumstance to justify the suppression orders which by law there needs to be exceptional circumstances. Based on Justice Wilson’s judgment she has ignored my request and now seems to claim Justice Beech-Jones put a suppression order on the whole case and the judgement can’t be published.
Having a suppression order on a whole judgment is a scandal by itself as what is meant to keep judges honest and accountable is the published written judgments which all the public should be allowed to scrutinize. Add that to the fact that Justice Wilson is trying to falsely claim that it was Justice Beech-Jones who put the suppression order on the whole judgment then it is time for the NSW government to intervene and have a good look at what Justice Wilson and other judges are up to issuing dodgy suppression orders.
The transcript
I was charged for contempt for what I said in court in February 2017. The transcript has been deliberately tampered with by selectively editing it by the prosecution. Justice Wilson is well aware of this and has gone along with it to make sure the contempt conviction sticks.
I pushed this point at the hearing on the 4th of May which you can read yourself in the transcripthere and here. Compare that to what was said in the judgment and it is disconcerting. I called Justice Hoeben a grub which I am entitled to do as per the precedent Coleman v Power. Not a paedophile as they claim. At the end of the day the whole thing is futile as I wrote an article last year titled “Paedophile priest gets 3 months jail for raping 3 boys by NSW Supre...” which is what started it all and that article has gone unchallenged from a defamation viewpoint and will be there for the next hundred years.
It is also clearly defendable because it is political communication as I questioned the performance and conduct of a judge who is ultimately part of government. The same communication that Justice Peter McClellan AM Chair, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has encouraged everyone to have. During a speech on Wednesday 2 August Justice Peter McClellan said:
The Royal Commission’s recommendations in relation to criminal justice issues are an opportunity for the entire Australian community to come together through their Parliaments to make changes to ensure that the High Court’s sentiments in Munda are achieved.
There are likely to be some, perhaps many, practitioners and judges, who will be resistant change. Perhaps their thinking may be assisted by reflecting on a comment by Lord Judge, who said:
Just because a change does not coincide with the way we have always done things does not mean that it should be rejected … Do proposed changes cause unfair prejudice to the defendant? If so, of course, they cannot happen. If however they make it more likely to enable the truth to emerge, whether favourable or unfavourable to the defendant, then let it be done. The truth is the objective.
The Royal Commission provided its report in relation to criminal justice to government last week. (Click here to read more)
The real issue here is that serious allegations against judges that have been made have gone unchallenged and unchecked and they are trying to silence one of the whistleblowers and they don’t want anyone to know the facts. It must be remembered that it was Fairfax Media and the ABC that in 2015 exposed that NSW judges had taken bribes of $2.2 million which would only be the tip of the iceberg so NSW judges have plenty to hide.
I wont dissect the whole judgement but there are plenty of grounds for appeal. For example their key witness was Kerry Stokes’ and Seven West Media’s lawyer Richard Keegan and Justice Wilson refused me the right to cross-examine him which is a blatant denial of natural justice. In fact Richard Keegan never showed up to the hearing so I have to wonder how did he know that Justice Wilson would refuse to allow me the right to cross-examine him on his affidavit? Was he already advised before the hearing?
Over the next day or so I will email formal complaints to the federal and NSW Attorney-Generals regarding Justice Helen Wilson’s decision and conduct during the hearing and add the emails to the comments section below as part of this article. I encourage you to do the same.
I am also due to be sentenced for breaching the dodgy suppression order in the Jane Doe 1 & Ors matter on Thursday (10/8/17). (Click here to read more)
Regular readers would know that my campaign against dodgy suppression orders started in 2014 when I breached Kerry Stokes’ super-injunction. By taking a stand, it has reached the point where appeals need to be fought and it is not really viable for me to represent myself for the appeals. To run the appeals it really needs lawyers and to help achieve this I have set up a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe. (Click here to see the campaign) It would be greatly appreciated if you supported the crowdfunding campaign.
https://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2017/08/05/journalist-found-in...
