I have yet to read the full judgments but it would seem that the threshold requirement for leave to appeal to the federal court - whether the intended appeal involves a question of public importance - has been satisfied. The intense appeal involves the issue of the legality of an exercise of a discretion by the Minister which led to his decision to ban the use by Herald of that word. The exercise of that discretion leading to that executive or administrative decision must be made legally, within jurisdiction and rationally. There is a constitutional dimension to the exercise of that discretion and the making of that decision and the federal court should have allowed leave to appeal and gone on to fix a date for the hearing of the appeal proper. And it does not augur well for three of the four majority judges to hide behind the Chief Justice and just concur with him without expressing their thoughts. So, there were four thinking judges - three for and one against the Heralds application for leave to appeal. The other three were non-thinking, non-speaking and therefore superfluous, just to make up the numbers?
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 19:09:04 +0000
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