WA v Armstrong

[2007] WASCA 204

Western Australia Court of Appeal

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Contempt of Court
2. › Contempt by publication
3. › Publication during criminal trial
4. › Letter to editor of newspaper
5. › Whether publication had real and definite tendency to prejudice fair trial
6. › Whether jurors likely to be sympathetic towards victim and family
7. › Whether generic criticism of judicial system capable of constituting contempt
8. › Sufficiency of evidence
9. › Supreme Court Act 1935 (WA), s 43
1. Contempt of Court
2. › Balancing exercise
3. › Freedom of speech and administration of justice
4. › Public interest in unconstrained expression
5. › Public interest in fair trial
6. › Whether summary jurisdiction to punish for contempt should be exercised
1. Evidence
2. › Burden and standard of proof
3. › Criminal standard in contempt proceedings
4. › Proof beyond reasonable doubt
5. › Paucity of evidence
6. › Failure to adduce evidence of events at trial

Quick Take

Generic criticism of the judicial system published in a letter to the editor — such as complaints that victims do not receive sufficient respect or that the system is weighted in favour of offenders — is too general to constitute contempt of court, even when published during a criminal trial. The prosecution bears the burden of adducing evidence about the course of the trial to establish that jurors would have associated the publication with the trial and been influenced by it; the trial judge's decision to discharge the jury is irrelevant to the question of contempt liability. Publications that appeal to sympathy for victims may be more difficult for jurors to disregard than publications containing inadmissible information, but a finding of contempt still requires proof beyond reasonable doubt that the publication had a real and definite tendency to prejudice a fair trial.