O'Shane defamation payout to be revised: [1 All-round Country Edition]
Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 18 May 2005: 5.
Abstract
The NSW Court of Appeal ruled that an opinion piece by former Sydney Morning Herald columnist Janet Albrechtsen was defamatory in part of Ms [Pat O'Shane], but that publisher John Fairfax had a defence of "comment" for a number of the imputations.
Albrechtsen, now a columnist with The Australian, said Ms O'Shane had been "angry many times". She referred to her dismissal of 116 charges against Aborigines in one day, allowing a man to escape penalty for calling police "f...ing poofters" and excusing four women who defaced a Berlei Bra billboard. Albrechtsen criticised the magistrate for seeing herself "as the sole arbiter of `human values"'.
A $220,000 defamation payout to Aboriginal magistrate Pat O'Shane is in jeopardy after a court ruled yesterday that the damages be reassessed.
The NSW Court of Appeal ruled that an opinion piece by former Sydney Morning Herald columnist Janet Albrechtsen was defamatory in part of Ms O'Shane, but that publisher John Fairfax had a defence of "comment" for a number of the imputations.
The Albrechtsen article, published in December 1999, suggested "O'Shane is often angry at what she perceives as injustices in our society" and that "when she unleashes her anger from the raised platform of the judicial bench, she ignites a highly charged debate within the legal and wider community".
Albrechtsen, now a columnist with The Australian, said Ms O'Shane had been "angry many times". She referred to her dismissal of 116 charges against Aborigines in one day, allowing a man to escape penalty for calling police "f...ing poofters" and excusing four women who defaced a Berlei Bra billboard. Albrechtsen criticised the magistrate for seeing herself "as the sole arbiter of `human values"'.
The Court of Appeal found yesterday that Fairfax had a defence of comment for the defamatory imputations that Ms O'Shane allowed an attitude of anger and bitterness to affect her judgment, that she was incompetent, undermined the judicial system and was unfit to hold office because she allowed her extreme views to affect her judgment.
The same defence was not successful in relation to the defamatory imputations found by a Supreme Court jury in 2001, including that she was biased, biased against police, was in breach of her duty as a magistrate when she dismissed charges against the four Berlei women and the offensive language charges because she believed they were a habitual form of police harassment against Aborigines.
The Court of Appeal also found that the implied constitutional freedom of communication on "government and political matters" did not extend to the judiciary.
Had this submission been successful, media organisations would have been able to rely on an additional defence when criticising, reasonably and in good faith, the country's judges and magistrates.
Janet Albrechtsen -- Opinion, Page 13
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