The Press FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1964. Freedom Of Speech Upheld

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30531, 28 August 1964, Page 10

The Press FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1964. Freedom Of Speech Upheld

The ruling of Mr Speaker (Sir Ronald Algie) that proceedings pending before an administrative tribunal should not preclude the House of Representatives from discussing the affairs of South Pacific Airlines of New Zealand was a valuable defence of freedom of speech outside Parliament as well as in, He held that the matter before the Air Services Licensing Authority was not one for judicial decision. The fact that the ensuing discussion was of little moment (least of all on the Opposition side) is of no significance. What does matter is that Parliament should refuse to be muzzled by a proliferation of administrative tribunals. If everything to come before them were regarded as sub judice the discussion of many, perhaps most, questions of public importance would be stifled, because their activities inevitably pervade the complex life of a modem community. Local bodies, newspapers, and other responsible voices of public opinion are already handicapped by their anxiety to observe propriety, apart from any possibility that they might be held in contempt of some obscure authority with powers that are administrative rather than judicial. Their position would be intolerable if Parliament were to agree that all these tribunals have the same status as courts of law and that discussion of anything that might come within their purview should be prohibited. Newspapers, the most efficient as well as the most vulnerable expression of public opinion, try to avoid anything that would prejudice parties to any dispute under adjudication; but that sound practice should not be construed as acceptance of the notion that they are prohibited from reporting and discussing matters of great public moment that may happen to be before administrative tribunals.

The effect of Sir Ronald Algie’s ruling is this: Parliament should not, under its own rules, debate any particular case that is before a court, though it may discuss a principle; it should not be similarly restricted by a matter before a tribunal considering economic or administrative questions and not issues of law. By statute, the Court of Arbitration, though many of its functions are legislative rather than judicial, is regarded as a court of law in all its activities, a legal curiosity so hallowed by time that it is unlikely to be altered. The principle should not, however, be extended to tribunals that properly have no judicial functions at all, and certainly not by the acceptance of a self-denying ordinance of Parliament. Parliament is the one great forum where every issue can be ventilated with no hindrance beyond the rules that Parliament makes for itself. Parliamentary freedom of speech, the privilege that the newly-elected House always asserts as one of its first acts, is the very foundation of our system of government.