Explainer: The Shield Laws of Australia and New Zealand – A Comparison
Shield Laws are designed to protect journalists in Court from charges of contempt if they refuse to reveal their confidential sources. However, depending on where you live certain Internet journalists and bloggers are precluded from this protection, Alexandra Davies explains
Shield Laws – What are they?
When a journalist is required to reveal confidential sources who supply them with information which that they published in the media, the journalist is faced with a legal and ethical dilemma. Protecting the identity of a source “in all circumstances” is of utmost importance. This is an ethical standard set out in the Australian Journalists’ Code of Ethics created by the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. However, refusing to reveal sources in Court could lead to the journalist facing jail time for a charge of Contempt of Court. Shield Laws aim to protect the journalist’s privilege
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It created a rebuttable presumption in s126H mirroring that of the Commonwealth legislation.
The NSW legislation differs from that of the Commonwealth with respect to the scope of the privilege afforded to journalists. The definition of the term ‘journalist’ is relatively narrow in NSW. S126J defines a journalist as ‘a person engaged in the profession or occupation of journalism in connection with the publication of information in a news medium’. This definition is not intended to extend the journalists’ privilege to bloggers or people on social media.
The former Attorney-General of NSW, Greg Smith stated “bloggers are coming from all areas ... some may be criminals doing some blogging to block or deflect police and to con politicians and the media’” as one of the reasons for the legislation’s narrow definition of ‘journalist’.
Stark began as a way to combat the abuse of doctors referring patients to clinics for tests in which they had a financial interest. Today it primarily deals with the hospital level and has seen compliance gained through the use of qui-tam lawsuits brought by non-governmental relators. Subpart A of this section will lay out the creation of Stark, the initial statute that created it and the many implementation phases and alterations it has gone through in its twenty-five plus year history. Subpart B will lay out some basic definitions that are necessary to understand the various elements of Stark violation. And Section C will give an introduction to the brief history of the SRDP.
Gardner, Martin R. (2000). The Sixth Amendment right to counsel and its underlying values: defining the scope of privacy protection. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.
The most recently adopted exceptions correlate to what may be called the public policy exceptions, exceptions where the lawyer is permitted to breach confidentiality to protect an interest other than that of the client. The ethical duty of confidentiality juxtaposes here with the law relating to the attorney client privilege. The attorney client privilege is a rule of evidence that is pertinent in judicial proceedings. The ethical duty of confidentiality is an ethical obligation that is far more extensive in scope than the privilege. The two are not interchangeable concepts, although there are many resemblances. Both attorneys were incapable legally without risking their licenses to provide Wilson’s confession upon Logan’s sentencing, due to breach of
The merits of both the adversarial and inquisitorial system will be explored throughout this paper. The Australian rule of law best describes as all law should be applied equally and fairly. The five vital operations of the rule of law includes fairness, rationality, predictability, consistency, and impartially. The adversarial system adopts these operations by having a jury decide on the verdict and the judge being an impartial decision maker. In contrast, the inquisitorial system relies heavily on the judge. This can result in abusive power and bias of the judge when hearing evidence and delivering verdicts. The operations of the rule of law determine why the rule of law is best served by the adversarial system in Australia.
The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides, "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury…nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property… nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation"(Cornell). The clauses within the Fifth Amendment outline constitutional limits on police procedure. Within them there is protection against self-incrimination, it protects defendants from having to testify if they may incriminate themselves through the testimony. A witness may plead the fifth and not answer to any questioning if they believe it can hurt them (Cornell). The Bill of Rights, which consists of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, enumerates certain basic personal liberties. Laws passed by elected officials that infringe on these liberties are invalidated by the judiciary as unconstitutional. The Fifth Amendment was ratified in 1791; the Framers of the Fifth Amendment intended that its revisions would apply only to the actions of the federal government. After the Fourteenth was ratified, most of the Fifth Amendment's protections were made applicable to the states. Under the Incorporation Doctrine, most of the liberties set forth in the Bill of Rights were made applicable to state governments through the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment (Burton, 2007).
The NSW Criminal Justice System is adequate when dealing with young offenders; however, like any legal system it does have its limitations. The NSW Criminal justice system does uphold the rights of the young offender by providing juveniles with special courts under the Childrens Court Act 1987 (NSW) by providing special protections under the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child; the recognising of culpability in regards to the age of the young offender by implementing doli incapax and by arranging a variety of diversionary programs and alternative punishments. However, the limitations of the NSW Criminal justice system in relation to young offenders is Doli Incapax in the The Childrens (Criminal Proceedings Act 1987) NSW which fails to recognise more serious offenders and The Young Offenders Act allowance for youth justice conferencing is not being cultivated for a wide enough range of offenders, leading the exclusion of some young offenders from the benefits that conferencing can offer.
In the media, defaming is taken quite seriously, if an individual is caught in the act. There have been a number of cases where a media individual has defamed someone, for example, Kyle Sandilands’s on air rants – one case where he stated that, Magda Szubanski should be in a concentration camp because she is overweight. Defamation can be defined as the act of damaging the good reputation of an individual ei – slander (Law Hand Book, 2015). This essay will outline whether defamation law is an ethical issue as much as it is a legal issue. Firstly outlining what defamation means for the media industry in Australia, Secondly outlining defamation cases in the media, and then lastly concluding the statement.
An argument can be made that Journalism is one of the very few professions in the world of media that is handled with some sort of dignity and pride. After reading “The Elements of Journalism” by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, I realized how important journalism is to each and every one of us. Whether you’re a writer or a reader, the back and forth exchange between provider and consumer is extremely important in pushing society forward. Journalism after all is designed to challenge society, promote new ideas and spark conversation between one another. Despite the positives of journalism, there are issues that exist within the profession that cannot be excused and cannot be ignored.
There are two distinct sides to the debate of journalism, their journalists, and the consumers: traditional journalism and public journalism. In the current digital age there is a greater number of public journalism being practiced. However, journalists and their consumers run into several issues concerning that matter. To express more clearly, there are particular roles and characteristics in which journalism standards are being gauged.
Moreover, consideration should be given to the argument or assertion that highly criminal minded people or professional criminals are abusing the right to silence and/or the privilege against self-incrimination. It is due to this assumption that the adherence to the requirement that the accused has the right to remain silent or that, there is a privilege accorded to an accused against self-incrimination, is taken for granted. Most prosecuting officials think that when people are innocent, they are willing to explain their innocence but when they choose to be silence; it means they are hiding something or they have committed the crime. In other words, silent means concern.
"Journalism Ethics Online Journalism Ethics Gatekeeping." Journalism Ethics for the Global Citizen. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
Everyone know that Law is a system of rules which are developed in community with a aim to govern a society maintaining, justice, protect individuals and property. There are a lot of countries and they have own set of rules and norms including itself constitutional, criminal, contract, trust, international, tort, administrative and property. During the long time law improving and developing a lot and become more invulnerable and fair. Therefore, in a modern society and most of countries law has become similar with similar legal system. Nowadays there are several general types of legal system in the world and two main most popular of them, which had mostly spread through the world. They
Firstly in this report, I will be giving the different definitions of rule of law by different philosophers; secondly, I will be applying the rule of law to the English Legal system and thirdly I will be explaining separation of powers with a focus on the impartial judiciary. Finally, I will be using cases to support every detailed point given.
McLoed and Hawley (as cited in Wilson, 1995) elucidated appropriately, "a recurrent journalistic controversy has involved the question whether journalism is a true profession or merely a craft." Sparked primarily by Lippmann and Dewey, extending into the age of the penny press (mid 1980s) and later, the attempt to commercialise the news (late 1980s) to our present era, there has existed a contentious debate on journalism being distinguished as a profession (Wilson, 1995). Encapsulated in a democratic homeland since the advent of time, media systems are habitually acclaimed as the “fourth power,” with its journalists often hailed as the “watch-dogs” of such a society. Lending itself to act as ‘gatekeeper’ for the wider society and performing the traditional role of journalism, the media (overall) exist as powerful “instruments of knowledge” that perform the function of providing information to the masses in a public sphere, where issues may be discussed, justified and contested (Scannell, 1995, p. 17). Evidently, media workers play a pivotal role in our society; however, their status in the realm of professions is not definite.
The New South Wales Criminal trial and sentencing process is adequate in balancing the rights of the victims, offenders and society however like any legal system is does have its faults. The options in the trial and sentencing process are stipulated in the Criminal Procedure Act 1986, the Crimes (Sentencing Legislation) Amendment (Intensive Correction Orders) Act 2010 and the Crimes (sentencing procedure) Act 1999 which features the use of charge negotiation, rehabilitation, mitigating factors and intensive corrective orders.