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Contempt of Court - From: 1970 To: 1979
This page lists 20 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
In re Bramblevale Ltd [1970] 1 Ch 128
1970
Evidence, Contempt of Court
For reasons of policy or pragmatism, the actual criminal standard of proof may be used in civil proceedings such as contempt of court. Contempt of court is a criminal offence. Accordingly, the burden of proving that the defendant is in contempt rests on the claimant and the facts constituting any contempt must be proved to the criminal standard.
1 Citers
Morris v Crown Office [1970] 2 QB 114; [1970] 1 All ER 1079
1970
CA
Salmon, Denning LJJ
Contempt of Court, Children
The applicants had been engaged in a calculated and coordinated campaign of disruption of the court. Held: The sole purpose of contempt proceedings is "to give our courts the power effectively to protect the rights of the public by ensuring that the administration of justice shall not be obstructed or prevented"
Young people are no ordinary criminals: "There is no violence, dishonesty or vice in them. They were trying to preserve the Welsh language. Though they have done wrong but must we show mercy on them and they were permitted to go back to their studies, to their parents and continue the good course."
Lord Denning said: "of all the places where law and order must be maintained, it is here in these courts. The course of justice must not be deflected or interfered with. Those who strike at it, strike at the very foundations of our society."
1 Citers
Acrow (Automation) Ltd v Rex Chainbelt Inc; 1971 - [1971] 3 All ER 1175
Comet Products UK Ltd v Hawkex Plastics; CA 1971 - [1971] 2 QB 67; [1971] 1 All ER 1141
Knight v Clifton [1971] Ch 700; [1971] 2 All ER 378
1971
CA
Sachs LJ
Contempt of Court
When dealing with an application to strike out, the judge should record his reasons for the finding, but it is sufficient if what he says shows the parties and, if need be, the Court of Appeal the basis on which he has acted. The court also considered the liability for costs: "By way of a footnote it should be specifically stated that neither as regards the court's jurisdiction over costs under section 50 (1) of the [Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation)] Act of 1925 nor as regards the nature of the discretion to be exercised under it, is there any difference in principle between proceedings for civil contempt and other inter partes proceedings. In practice, however, upon committal proceedings the court can on the one hand naturally look at the general course to date of the relevant cause of action when assessing what order as to costs should be made and have regard to the extent of any right or title already established, but on the other hand must keep in mind that the liberty of the subject is involved and give that factor special weight."
1 Citers
Jennison v Baker [1972] 2 QB 52
1972
CA
Salmon LJ
Contempt of Court
Salmon LJ said: "The inherent power of the judges of the High Court to commit for contempt of court has existed from time immemorial . . The power exists to ensure justice shall be done. And solely to this end, it prohibits acts and words tending to obstruct the administration of justice. The public at large no less than the individual litigant have an interest and a very real interest in justice being effectively administered".
1 Citers
Heaton's Transport (St Helen's) Ltd v Transport and General Workers' Union; HL 1972 - [1973] AC 15; [1972] IRLR 25; [1972] 3 All ER 101
BIBA Limited v Stratford Investments Limited [1973] Ch 281
1973
Contempt of Court
The court was asked whether a breach of an undertaking gave rise to the same consequences under RSC Order 45 rule 5 as the breach of an order.
1 Citers
Attorney-General v Times Newspapers Ltd; HL 1973 - [1973] 3 All ER 54; [1973] 3 WLR 298; [1974] AC 273
Regina v Socialist Worker Printers and Publishers Ltd, Ex parte Attorney-General [1975] 1 All ER 142 DG; [1974] 3 WLR 801; [1975] QB 637
1974
CA
Widgery LCJ, Milmo Ackner LJJ
Contempt of Court, Media
In a blackmail case, the court ordered non publication of the names of the complainants. Thinking they were not bound, the defendants published the names. Held: The publishers and Mr Michael Foot were held to be in contempt of court in disclosing the names in defiance of the trial judge's direction. An act of contempt required an intention to do an act calculated to interfere with the due course of justice. The act here was a flagrant affront to the court's authority. It would result in a reduced confidence of witnesses that they could give evidence wihout fear, and the contempt was made out.
Lord Widgery CJ set out the reasons for giving anonymity to blackmail complainants: "all of us concerned in the law know that for more years than any of us can remember it has been a commonplace in blackmail charges for the complainant to be allowed to give his evidence without disclosing his name. That is not out of any feelings of tenderness towards the victim of the blackmail, a man or woman very often who deserves no such consideration at all. The reason why the courts in the past have so often used this device in this type of blackmail case where the complainant has something to hide, is because there is a keen public interest in getting blackmailers convicted and sentenced, and experience shows that grave difficulty may be suffered in getting complainants to come forward unless they are given this kind of protection . . the Crown at this stage had presented a prima facie case of contempt . . because to my mind it is quite evident that if witnesses in blackmail actions are not adequately protected, this could affect the readiness of others to come forward in other cases."
Even so the public should be admitted to a trial: "The great virtue of having the public in our courts is that discipline which the presence of the public imposes upon the court itself. When the court is full of interested members of the public, as indeed one can say it is today, it is bound to have the effect that everybody is more careful about what they do, everyone tries just that little bit harder and there is a disciplinary effect on the court which would be totally lacking if there were no critical members of the public or press present.
When one has an order for trial in camera, all the public and all the press are evicted at one fell swoop and the entire supervision by the public is gone. Where one has a hearing which is open, where the names of the witnesses are withheld, virtually all the desirable features of having the public present are to be seen. The only thing which is kept from their knowledge is the name of the witness."
1 Citers
Balogh v St Albans Crown Court [1975] 1 QB 73
1975
CA
Lord Denning MR, Stephenson LJ, Lawton LJ
Contempt of Court
The defendant, a solicitors' clerk attending a trial, grew bored, and set out to release laughing gas into the court through a vent. He had been seen earlier and was caught before he achieved his end. He appealed his committal; for contempt, saying that his acts had not been in the face of the court. Held: It was a contempt and the court had power to commit. The court's power to commit a contemnor without charge or trial exists to protect the administration of justice, and is not limited to punishing for contempt 'in the face of the court' or what the judge himself sees and knows. Because it is arbitrary and contrary to natural justice it is to be exercised with scrupulous care and only when it is imperative to act immediately. Lord Denning MR: "a judge should act of his own motion only when it is urgent and imperative to act immediately." and "Returning to the present case, it seems to me that up to a point the judge was absolutely right to act of his own motion. The intention of Mr. Balogh was to disrupt the proceedings in a trial then taking place. His conduct was reported to the senior judge then in the court building. It was very proper for him to take immediate action, and to have Mr. Balogh brought before him. But once he was there, it was not a case for summary punishment. There was not sufficient urgency to warrant it. Nor was it imperative. He was already in custody on a charge of stealing. The judge would have done well to have remanded him in custody and invited counsel to represent him." Stephenson LJ: "... if the appellant was in contempt, could or should his contempt have been immediately punished by Melford Stevenson J. as a judge of the Crown Court in the way in which it was punished, namely, by committal to prison for six months? Again my answer is "No," and my reasons can be even more shortly stated - in two sentences. This procedure is one to which judges should resort in exceptional cases where a contempt is clearly proved and cannot wait to be punished. Here the facts alleged to constitute the contempt were admitted, but there was no need for immediate punishment." and "[The summary procedure] must never be invoked unless the ends of justice really require such drastic means; it appears to be rough justice; it is contrary to natural justice; and it can only be justified if nothing else will do ... ." Lawton LJ: "In my judgment this summary and draconian jurisdiction should only be used for the purpose of ensuring that a trial in progress or about to start can be brought to a proper and dignified end without disturbance and with a fair chance of a just verdict or judgment."
1 Citers
Taylor v Attorney-General [1975] 2 NZLR 675
1975
Commonwealth, Contempt of Court
(New Zealand - Court of Appeal) A court has power to make an explicit order directed to and binding on the public ipso jure as to what might lawfully be published outside the courtroom in relation to proceedings held before it.
1 Citers
In re F (otherwise A) (A Minor) (Publication of Information) [1976] 3 All ER 274; [1976] 3 WLR 307; [1977] Fam 47
1976
FD
Children, Media, Contempt of Court
Administration of Justice Act 1960 12(1)(a)
1 Citers
Maharaj v Attorney General for Trinidad and Tobago [1977] 1 All ER 411
11 Oct 1976
PC
Lord Salmon
Commonwealth, Contempt of Court, Natural Justice
A judge of the High Court had committed the barrister appellant to prison for seven days for contempt in the face of the court. The barrister was granted special leave to appeal to the Board against the committal order. Held: Allowing the appeal. The judge had, however inadvertently, failed to serve a fundamental rule of natural justice, that a person accused of an offence should be told plainly enough to give him an opportunity to put forward any expkanation or excuse that he may wish to advance: "In charging the appellant with contempt, Maharaj J did not make plain to him the particulars of the specific nature of the contempt with which he was charged. This must usually be done before an alleged contemnor can properly be convicted and punished . . In their Lordships' view, justice certainly demanded that the judge should have done so in this particular case. Their Lordships are satisfied that his failure to explain that the contempt with which he intended to charge the appellant was what the judge has described in hiw written reasons as a 'vicious attack on the integrity of the Court' vitiates the committal for contempt."
Lord Salmon said: "Their Lordships recognise how important it is not to waste judicial time. But if this can be avoided only by finding against a party without giving him a fair chance of being heard, then such a price for saving judicial time is far too high."
Lord Salmon said: "No point was taken on the hearing of the petition for special leave that such an appeal does not lie to Her Majesty in Council, nor was any such point taken in the respondent's case. The point was however raised for the first time as a preliminary objection at the hearing of this appeal. Their Lordships can deal with it quite shortly.
It was conceded on behalf of the respondent that the point would have been unarguable before 1962, since it has long been well settled that it is competent for Her Majesty in Council to entertain appeals against orders of courts of record overseas imposing penalties for contempt of court. Their Lordships consider that the point is equally unarguable now for they can discover nothing in the Trinidad and Tobago Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1962 or the Trinidad and Tobago (Procedure in Appeals to Privy Council) Order in Council 1962 which touches Her Majesty's power in Council to entertain appeals against orders of courts of record overseas imposing penalties for contempt of court."
1 Cites
1 Citers
In re F (otherwise A ) (A Minor) (Publication of Information) [1977] 1 All ER 114; [1976] 3 WLR 813; [1977] Fam 58
1977
CA
Scarman LJ, Lord Denning MR, Geoffrey Lane LJ
Children, Contempt of Court
An allegation of contempt was made in proceedings related to the publication by a newspaper of extracts from a report by a social worker and a report by the Official Solicitor, both prepared after the commencement and for the purpose of the wardship proceedings. Held: What was published was "information relating to [the] proceedings" within the meaning of section 12. The Court drew a distinction between publication of information about a child (a ward), the publication of which was not of itself a contempt at common law, and is not a contempt under section 12, and, on the other hand, the publication of information relating to proceedings about the child (ward), which is in principle a contempt if the court has been sitting in private.
Section 12 of the 1960 Act does not mean that every newspaper report about award of court will be in contempt.
Scarman LJ said: "[The judge] construed the statutory words "information relating to proceedings before a court sitting in private" as having a wider meaning than information relating to an actual or imminent hearing. Indeed, he construed the words so as to include information about the ward irrespective of whether the information related to a hearing or not. He accepted that there was no reported case at common law which went further than to declare an account of the proceedings (or of the order made) to be a contempt; but, bearing in mind the nature of wardship, he interpreted "proceedings" as meaning "a continuing state of affairs for as long as the wardship lasts . . I do not so interpret the section. I think the judge . . gave too wide a meaning to "proceedings" . . Prior to 1960, as the judge recognised, no court is known to have treated as a contempt anything that was not an account of legal proceedings. By retaining the word "proceedings". Parliament must have intended to maintain the relationship between contempt of court and a court's proceedings. As I read the section, what is protected from publication is the proceedings of the court; in all other respects the ward enjoys no greater protection against unwelcome publicity than other children. If the information published relates to the ward, but not to the proceedings, there is no contempt; as North J commented in Martindale's case [1894] 3 Ch 193, 201, there would have been no contempt in that case had the newspaper confined its report to the fact of the ward's marriage". And
"The words, in their context, need mean no more than that there is a contempt in the absence of a defence recognised by law. If Parliament had intended to treat publication of information relating to proceedings before a court sitting in private as a contempt irrespective of circumstances, I would have expected express provision to that effect. Circumstances can and do arise in which Parliament must have intended the old law to continue, for example, where the court authorises publication or where by the passage of time 'the rule of publicity [is] resumed' (Lord Shaw of Dunfermline, Scott v Scott [1913] AC 417 at 483). Similarly, if, as I believe, the pre-existing law recognised a defence that the publisher neither knew nor ought to have known that the information published related to proceedings before a court in private, one would have expected express provision if such a defence was to be taken away."
Lord Denning MR said: "There is no suggestion anywhere that it was a contempt of court to publish information about the ward herself, be it favourable or adverse, helpful or injurious to her. But there are cases to show that it was a contempt of court to publish information relating to the proceedings in court about a ward � When the court . . sat in private to hear wardship proceedings, the very sitting in private carried with it a prohibition forbidding publication of anything that took place, save only for the formal order made by the judge or an accurate summary of it."
As to section 12 "the prohibition would, I think, apply, not only to information given to the judge at the actual hearing, but also to confidential reports submitted beforehand by the Official Solicitor, or social workers, or the like."
Geoffrey Lane LJ asked: "what is meant by 'proceedings'? Obviously a report of the actual hearing before the judge or part of it is included. But the words must include more than that; otherwise it would have been unnecessary to use the expression 'information relating to proceedings' . . The object is to protect from publication information which the person giving it believes to be protected by the cloak of secrecy provided by the court. 'Proceedings' must include such matters as statements of evidence, reports, accounts of interviews and such like, which are prepared for use in court once the wardship proceedings have been properly set on foot."
Lord Denning MR said: "The existence of wardship does not give the ward a privilege over and above other young people who are not wards. It does not give her exemption from comment on her activities, be they favourable or adverse, be they helpful to her or injurious. The remedy for defamatory remarks about a ward is the law of libel, not of contempt of court."
Administration of Justice Act 1960 12(1)
1 Cites
1 Citers
Attorney-General v Leveller Magazine Ltd; QBD 1978 - [1978] 3 All ER 731; [1978] 3 WLR 395; [1979] QB 31
Maharaj v Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago (No 2) [1979] AC 385; [1978] UKPC 3; [1978] 2 All ER 670; [1978] Crim LR 355
27 Feb 1978
PC
Diplock, Hailsham of St Marylebone, Salmon, Keith of Kinkell LL
Commonwealth, Contempt of Court, Damages
(Trinidad and Tobago) The appellant barrister has been convicted of contempt. The Board had previously found the conviction improper because the basis of the complaint had not been made clear to him. The appellant now sought damages for his imprisonment. Held: The Board referred to the risks of erroneous judicial decisions: "The fundamental human right is not to a legal system that is infallible but to one that is fair". There was no right of appeal to the Court of Appeal from an order of a judge of the High Court finding a person guilty of contempt of court and ordering him to be punished for it.
1 Cites
1 Citers
[ Bailii ]
Deodat v Deodat (No 2) Unreported, 9 June 1978; [ 1978] CAT 78/487
9 Jun 1978
CA
Megaw LJ
Contempt of Court
In the case of an application for committal for contempt, "it is impossible to read implied terms into an order of the court".
1 Citers
Halcon International Inc v Shell Transport and Trading Co [1979] RPC 97
1979
CA
Megaw LJ
Contempt of Court
A document could continue to have confidentiality after being read out in court. The documents referred to in the judgment had not been read in court. "The general provision of English law with regard to the use of documents which have been made available by a party in discovery in an English action is, I think, not in dispute. I am quite content to accept it as it is set out in passages in Bray on Discovery, 1st ed. (1885). It is an old book, published in 1885; but, so far as concerns the principles which I am going to quote, they are, in my judgment, still applicable and they are accurately set out. At p. 238 it is said: 'A party who has obtained access to his adversary's documents under an order for production has no right to make their contents public or communicate them to any stranger to the suit.' The reasons for that have been stated in a number of cases in the courts. One of them is, to my mind, an obvious reason: documents belonging to a party are their own property. It is perfectly right, in accordance with English procedure, that, where litigation is involved in which that party is either the plaintiff or the defendant, he should be obliged to disclose documents which are in his possession, even though they may tell against his own interest, subject always, of course, to particular rules as to certain documents being privileged (which does not arise in this case). But it is in general wrong that one who is thus compelled by law to produce documents for purposes of particular proceedings should be in peril of having these documents used by the other party for some purpose other than the purpose of those particular legal proceedings and, in particular, that they should be made available to third parties who might use them to the detriment of the party who has produced them on discovery. And there is the further, practical, reason which has been stressed recently in the case of Riddick v. Thames Board Mills Ltd. [1979] Q.B. 881, by Lord Denning M.R.: that it is important, for the administration of justice, that there should not be a disincentive to parties to make proper discovery, so that they are minded to hold back, and seek to avoid the disclosure of documents which may tell against themselves in litigation. One substantial disincentive would be if there was the danger that those documents, being disclosed, might be used for purposes outside the purposes of the particular action. . . . Mr. Bray in his book at p. 239 says: 'The principle, however' - that is, the principle in the passage which I have recently quoted - 'is not that the party cannot be compelled to divulge them for any other purpose even if the court should in any case so think fit, but that they cannot be used except under the authority of the court: ...' It is open to the court, if the court sees fit, to give permission to a party who has obtained documents or copies of documents on discovery *545 in an action, to use those documents for a purpose other than the purposes of the action in respect of which they have been produced."
1 Citers
Attorney-General v Leveller Magazine Ltd; HL 1-Feb-1979 - [1979] AC 440; [1978] 3 All ER 731; [1979] 2 WLR 247
