Laws v Australian Broadcasting Tribunal [1990] HCA 31

High Court of Australia Mason C.J. Brennan, Deane, Gaudron and McHugh JJ. Laws v Australian Broadcasting Tribunal [1990] HCA 31

ORDER Appeal allowed in part. Vary the orders of the Full Court of the Federal Court by ordering that the first order of Morling J. be set aside and that in lieu thereof it be ordered that the respondent not proceed with the holding of an inquiry of the kind referred to in its letter of 11 December 1987 to the appellant while either the Chairman or Ms. Bailey is present in her capacity as a member of the respondent. The appellant to pay the respondent's costs of the appeal.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered: —

June 28 Mason C.J. and Brennan J.

The issue for decision in this appeal is whether, in the unusual circumstances which have arisen, the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal ("the Tribunal") can hold an inquiry under s. 17C(1) of the Broadcasting Act 1942 Cth ("the Act") into the proposed exercise of its substantive powers in relation to the alleged contravention by the appellant of one of the radio programme standards prescribed by the Tribunal and, if so, whether any or all of its members would be precluded from participating in that inquiry by reason of actual or apprehended bias. In this Court it is not disputed that three of the then members of the Tribunal would be disqualified from so participating, subject to the doctrine of necessity, by reason of their participation in a decision made on 24 November 1987 to the effect that the appellant was in breach of the relevant standard. What is now in contention is whether the filing and maintaining of defences of justification and qualified privilege by the Tribunal in an action for defamation brought by the appellant against the Tribunal and Ms. Janette Paramore, the Director of its Programs Division, arising out of an account given by Ms. Paramore in a radio broadcast of the decision of 24 November, and the broadcast of that account, have the effect of disqualifying all or any of the members of the Tribunal from participating in such an inquiry on account of actual or apprehended bias, subject again to the operation of the doctrine of necessity.