John Fairfax & Sons Pty Ltd v McRae [1955] HCA 12

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. McTiernan, Fullagar, Kitto and Taylor JJ. John Fairfax & Sons Pty Ltd v McRae [1955] HCA 12

ORDER Appeals allowed with costs. Order of the Supreme Court dated 28th April 1954 discharged. In lieu thereof order that the rule nisi dated 15th March 1954 be discharged with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Mar. 18 Dixon C.J., Fullagar, Kitto, Taylor JJ.

This is an appeal from an order of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (Full Court) making absolute a rule nisi directed to the three appellants to show cause why they should not be punished for contempt of court. The appellant company is the proprietor of the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, the appellant Pringle is the editor of that newspaper, and the appellant Reynolds is a solicitor practising in Sydney. The contempt charged consisted in the publication in the Herald of certain matter relating to the arrest of one Alan Pierpoint Rigby and containing allegations of violent and unprovoked assaults upon him on 18th February 1954 by certain members of the police force of New South Wales. Three charges were preferred by the police against Rigby, and these were pending at the time of the publication of the matter in question. That publication was held by the Full Court to constitute a contempt of court because it tended to interfere with the course of justice in relation to those pending proceedings. A fine of £250 was imposed upon the company, a fine of £50 upon Pringle, and a fine of the same amount upon Reynolds, who supplied some of the matter complained of to the newspaper.

Before examining the facts and circumstances in more detail, it will be convenient to consider a question of law of considerable importance, which was discussed before the Full Court and before this Court. It may possibly be going too far to say that it is always of the essence of a contempt of the type alleged in this case that the matter published should have a tendency to prejudice or embarrass the conduct of proceedings actually pending in a court at the time of publication: see R. v. Parke [1] and R. v. Daily Mirror; Ex parte Smith [2] . It has been seen, however, that in the present case proceedings by the police against Rigby were actually pending at the time of publication, and it is in relation to these that the question of contempt must be considered. In fact there was also pending at that time an information for assault laid by Rigby against one of the constables concerned. This fact, however, was not known in the Herald office, and we think that the Supreme Court rightly put this proceeding out of consideration. Now, the three charges against Rigby were pending not in the Supreme Court of New South Wales but in a court of petty sessions. And it was argued for the appellants, on the one hand, that, if there was a contempt here at all, there was no contempt of any court except the court of petty sessions, and, on the other hand, that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to deal summarily with a contempt of any court other than itself. The Full Court decided against this contention. In effect, their Honours accepted the second of the two propositions put, but rejected the first. The respondent contended that the jurisdiction of the Court of King's Bench to punish summarily for contempt (a jurisdiction inherited by the Supreme Court of New South Wales) extended to contempts of any court, or at least to contempts of any court which was subject to control by the King's Bench by means of any of the prerogative writs.