Rinehart loses bid for information
Gina Rinehart has lost a bid to force The West Australian to hand over information which could reveal a journalist’s confidential sources after a landmark Supreme Court ruling which has found subpoenas issued by the mining billionaire would undermine State shield laws.
In the first test of the shield laws since they came into effect in November, Justice Janine Pritchard today upheld The West’s application to set aside a subpoena relating to Ms Rinehart’s bitter multi-billion legal battle with two of her children.
“WAN’s application to set aside the subpoena should be upheld in part, on the ground that the subpoena is oppressive and constitutes an abuse of process, having regard to the shield laws,” Justice Pritchard said in her decision.
Outside court, The West editor Brett McCarthy said the judgment was a spectacular win for Australian journalism.
“The judge carefully weighed up the rights of our journalist Steve Pennells to maintain a confidential source against the rights of a litigant to have that source revealed and found in our favour,” McCarthy said.
“The West will always fight for the right of our journalists to maintain confidential sources no matter who brings action against us.”
In March last year, The West and Pennells were served with subpoenas after a series of exclusive articles about Mrs Rinehart’s family stoush over part of the inheritance from Lang Hancock’s estate.
The subpoenas sought copies of all letters, faxes, emails, legal advice, memorandums, text messages, recordings and other communications between Pennells and Mrs Rinehart’s son, John Hancock.
Mrs Rinehart’s company, Hancock Prospecting, argued the documents were relevant to closed arbitration proceedings which allege confidentiality clauses of a family trust had been breached.
At a hearing in May, when Hancock Prospecting said it would not pursue the subpoena against Pennells, The West argued handing over the information would breach the fundamental tenet of journalism that confidential sources were protected.
In today’s decision, Justice Pritchard said forcing the newspaper to comply with the demands would undermine the protection afforded by the shield laws.
Justice Pritchard said disclosing the information would require Pennells to breach a fundamental ethical obligation and there was a strong public interest in the ability of the news media to be able to access sources of facts.
The decision applies to all documents except those which contain information identifying informants who have already been publicly disclosed in the articles as the source.
An application by Hancock Prospecting lawyer David Studdy to delay the publication of the reasons was dismissed by Justice Pritchard, who adjourned a further application by the mining company to re-open the case.
