Media lawyers face referral to registrar for contempt of court

The application referenced four articles by The Age and Fairfax publications that were allegedly in breach of suppression orders that protected the identities of nine pro-Israel individuals who complained about Lattouf’s employment at the national broadcaster.

Appearing on behalf of the pro-Israel group after Justice Rangiah’s judgment was handed down, Sue Chrysanthou SC alleged the media companies’ conduct led to her client receiving “death threats”.

When the matter returned to the Federal Court on Monday, 14 July, Chrysanthou showed Justice Rangiah more examples of the harassment her client’s suffered and said they were victims of further abuse “every time I have had to come to court”.

Chrysanthou added that her instructing solicitors have repeatedly contacted those at Nine, via its in-house lawyers, to claim they were in breach of the suppression order, but they were met with silence.

Tom Blackburn SC, appearing for Nine’s publications, said that while the harassment was “deplorable”, it was “not our fault”.

He added the contempt case was “very weak”, particularly because the registrar would have to determine whether those named in the application had the power to take down the articles and examine whether the nature of the order was “impossible to obey”.

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On the latter, Blackburn said his clients were unaware which individuals were protected under the suppression order when the articles were published and they only received “confusing correspondence” from Chrysanthou’s instructing solicitors.

“It’s hopeless, Your Honour, it’s absolutely hopeless. They want the registrar to take on the burden of doing this, [and] expose the court to a costs order, to prove these things,” Blackburn said.

Blackburn also argued against naming two lawyers in the application because it was “quite incoherent and should not have been made”.

“Why are they persisting, in a public proceeding, with a hopeless accusation against two legal practitioners [to say] they have committed a contempt of court? The practitioners did not have the power to compel the taking down of the articles,” Blackburn said.

In response, Chrysanthou said the lawyers were “aware of the order” and repeatedly ignored letters “in the sense that they did not respond to them, [and] they offered no explanation to my solicitors”.

Chrysanthou added that the lawyers did not ask any questions, including the identities of those who were protected under the order.

“For my friend to say there is some impropriety to accuse lawyers … [they] are officers of the court and Your Honour’s words were drawn to their attention and they did nothing, and we don’t know why.

“We say it is sufficient for it to be referred to the registrar who has compulsory powers to obtain further evidence on these matters,” Chrysanthou said.

Justice Rangiah reserved judgment.