BRADBURY V. STAINES

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Oral Judgment delivered at... SY INey, Thursday 4th December 1969

BRADBURY

ve

STAINES

Application for special leave to appeal refused with costs.

i

!

ig

\

|

i ERADBURY

i B

Ve STAINES

JUDGMENT BARWICK C.J. (ORAL)

BRADBURY Ve

STAINES

The applicant seeks special leave to appeal against a Judgment of the Supreme Court of Queensland which, by majority, set aside the conviction of the respondent by a stipendiary magistrate, of having in a public place used obscene language contrary to s. 7(c) of The Vagrants, Gaming and Other Offences Act, 1931-1967 of that State.

The statute, in defining an obscene publication defines "obscene" for the purposes of that definition as including, but not limited to, emphasising matters of sex _ or crime or calculated to encourage depravity. But there is no statutory definition of what is obscene language.

4 The facts before the magistrate are not in dispute, The word charged was used in the public performance of a play and as part, indeed, the final line, of its script. The only question for the magistrate's consideration was whether, in the circumstances of its use, that use was a.use of obscene language.

What is obscene, like what is indecent, must be judged according to the current standards of decency of the community. The magistrate decided the matter according to what he considered the standards of the community in this respect to be.

The Full Court set aside his conviction of the respondent, solely on the ground that no reasonable

man could hold that the use of the word charged in the

2.

circumstances of its use was the use of obscene language within the meaning of the section.

No other question, it seems to me, is in terms involved in the reasons of the majority of the Full Court. But the applicant submits that tle use of the words charged ought, in all circumstances, to be held to offend the section, and he says therefore that the Full Court could not Say that there was no evidence before the magistrate on which he could convict.