BY JESSICA ROSE

ADELAIDE — The full bench of the South Australian Supreme Court has ruled against Michael Brander, head of the racist National Action organisation, in his defamation action against Messenger Newspapers.

Brander claimed that he had been defamed in a satirical column by Messenger editor Des Ryan in April 1995. The piece queried the basis on which Brander, who was a candidate in the Enfield council election at the time, became the leader of National Action.

The case was dismissed in the magistrate's court last year, with the magistrate finding that the description of Brander as a racist was justified. Brander appealed to the Supreme Court on a number of grounds (although not on the finding that he was racist) and Justice David Wicks ruled that the column was defamatory in suggesting that Brander was motivated by juvenile attention-seeking and was effeminate.

Messenger Newspapers then appealed the Wicks ruling to the full bench.

In the full bench judgement, Justice Bruce Lander commented that the column “may be described as satirical and which invited the reader to hold the plaintiff up to ridicule... Nevertheless in the circumstances of this case the subject matter of the article was government or political matter.”

The court found that Messenger Newspapers succeeded in a defence of qualified privilege under the Australian constitution, which allows a limited freedom of communication of matters of government and politics.

Tools

• Bookmark This Page
• Print This Page