Case closed.

Next.

“However to assert that a person in authority in any area must always continually rule out any possible threat every time he advises his constituents about any aspect of his area of authority…AFL coaches and players will now have to explicitly rule out that they will ever retaliate against any foul blow from opposing players on the field, etc. The list goes on and on.”

The list that goes on and on and lies within your willfully non comprehensible, obtuse irrationality WIIS. You have clearly ignored the list of contempts (House of Commons) and Cth legislation in #9 above which is self explanatory I would have thought. Advice to constituents is fine unless it fits #9 by a parliament interpreting its privileges and using its wide discretionary powers. It is an ancient doctrine that was created by devil dodging Kings of England. There is no AFL, Rugby, League, Soccer addenda within the meaning of any history, legislation or the common law of contempt of Parliament/Court. (If this doesn’t make any sense, I’ve already accepted your plea of doli incapax.)

(It is of course remotely possible that members of Parliament or Judges might give your flights of fancy a look in, but ONLY if they decided to play football respectively in Parliament or in the Courts. In that case we’d probably need to constitutionally synthesise sport, parliament and the judiciary and appoint Ron Barassi as President of a new Republic.)

For your 1st practical lesson in Contempt 101, pretend you’re Ronnie Barker or Birdie, go into any court or parliament and shout out: “Youse are all a mob of forrible huckers.”

C.L. and Homer don’t think this can be called a threat, while others do. But it’s clear by now that we have a disagreement about theology, not about what Pell meant, nor for that matter about semantics.

When a customs official says ‘I won’t be able to let you pass this point if you don’t produce you passport’, no one would call that a threat. C.L. and Homer perhaps think that Pell’s refusing communion is that sort of thing. But there are obviously a lot of Catholics who wouldn’t see it that way — they would argue that the responsibilities of an elected politician are by no means so clear cut, and that Pell has the discretion to acknowledge this and respect their judgement.

So we have a theological dispute. Therefore, it’s one that an outsider would be rash to try and adjudicate on. That was the main point of my post. Let Pell and the politicians have it out in the confines of the Church. If the NSW public don’t like the outcome, let them boot these people out next time round, and question the next lot of candidates more carefully.

Comment #23.

This is a quite remarkable legal proposition. As Ken said it we must assume that it really is the legal position, because lawyers never mislead anyone about the law and being experts in the law can never be mistaken in their interpretation of the law. That’s why the lawyers of plaintiffs and defendants always agree on points of law in court and in their spectacular media appearances, which of course represent free legal advice to all of us.

However to assert that a person in authority in any area must always continually rule out any possible threat every time he advises his constituents about any aspect of his area of authority. Remarkable indeed. Anyone with any imagination can see the extension of this legal obligation to so many areas of life, whether in business, employment, sport and any area you like to think of. AFL coaches and players will now have to explicitly rule out that they will ever retaliate against any foul blow from opposing players on the field, etc. The list goes on and on. Any AFL player or coach who promises to play the game hard will be charged with a criminal offence unless he adds this disclaimer.

Metaphorically speaking, it has all the subtlety of Sinatra’s Rat Pack entering a Sydney knocking shop in broad daylight; all the shouting and noise created by the roof blowing off and a double dose of shamefulness when said roof lands on Pell’s Cathedral while he’s giving a sermon against condom use.

I must have been subtle about the evil peter jensen.

Pell as CL has shown was merely upholding simple catholic doctrine.
No-one has to be a catholic so how in hells name ( pun intended) could it be a threat.
You either accept the doctrine and continue to be a catholic or you reject and join another denomination.
I would suggest Uniting they stand for nothing, reject biblical knowledge for worldly ways

There was no threat. Case closed.

On perceptions, there is one throughout the community that the unions control a lot of Labor MPs and that the latter live under constant threat of being rolled unless they vote a particular way. They should be investigated by WA Labor at the first opportunity.

Right, WIIS. Your second paragraph describes my view as well.

Nevertheless I have a great deal of respect for sincere practicing catholics. It is a difficult faith to live up to conscientiously and requires a great deal more character than I possess.

But to briefly address the asserted “Two facts: there was no threat”. Concentrate on the perception of a threat CL in a legal context and you just may be able to contribute something worthwhile.

Two facts: there was no threat. Second: nobody who believes in and publicly advocates embryonic stem cell research or abortion is in communion with the Church. They can say they are all they want. But they’re not.

There ARE threats routinely made by unions against their Labor puppets, however, but they probably won’t be investigated.

Peter’s bush-lawyer palaver is about as relevant as it was when last seen being shot down in flames by GregM in relation to the history of the Vietnam War.

“More scathing still, the new Emergency Services Minister, Nathan Rees, branded Pell “a world-class hypocrite” and blasted his interference as “a clear and arguably contemptuous incursion into the deliberations of the elected members of this Parliament I think Cardinal Pell has three options: he can apologise, he can run for Parliament or he can invite further comparisons with that serial boofhead Sheik al Hilaly.”

Inshallah! Even the faithful were in revolt. In a speech of simple decency, Tony Stewart, the Labor member for Bankstown and a Catholic, said he felt like “a religious kamikaze pilot” but would vote for the bill “because I am in communion with God on it if we believe what Cardinal George Pell says, we may as well believe that the sun rotates around a flat Earth”.”

Indeed. From the “heresy” of heliocentrism, to modern times, Mile Carlton goes on to say:

“It was quite some time – 1992, in fact – before a Pope, John Paul II, formally admitted that Galileo had copped a bum rap. We must hope it does not take another four centuries for the Vatican to concede there might be something to this stem cell business after all.”

Exactly. But by whyisitso’s reasoning, (Inshallah), those members, some Catholics in the NSW parliament must be “twisted, [and using their]untested knowledge of the technicalities of law to further their personal agendas, in this case visceral hatred of the catholic church and its doctrines.”

“Depressing” for you, isn’t it whyisitso???

(A general rule of thumb, if I just, well, be condescending for a moment, a legal non-practitioner representing himself in (or out of) court, has a fool for a client.)

http://www.abc.net.au/am/stories/s574189.htm
An example of prima facie contempt of court was Attorneys General (Australia, Transylvania, Parallel Universes of the Undead) Ruddock’s attack on the Federal Court for continuing to hear migration cases when prior legislation purportedly restricted appeals to the High Court.

“HENRY MARES: Well it can be a contempt to suggest that the outcome of the case was affected by factors other than the law that applies and the facts of the particular case so here if Ruddock’s comments suggest that the court is making decisions based on his pressure then that can constitute a contempt of court.”

Likewise, if the Parliament of NSW considered that Pell’s statements constituted “threatening behaviour” such that it was perceived that the Parliament was in the position of “making decisions based on his pressure” (threats, not ordinary persuasion) a contempt could be made out. It is of course, a prerogative power of Parliament that is highly discretionary. They are not likely to do so as Ken said, and I agree, but a cautioning statement by the speaker (my local member–must give him a call!) would not be out of order and arguably appropriate.

By analogy, to answer whyisitso’s red herring of threats being temporal/spiritual. The tort of assault (not battery) deals with the perception in the subjective mind of the victim. Irrespective of the intent of the perpetrator, if the victim believes that threats are so imminent as to create a reasonable fear of attack subjectively, assault is made out. In a UK case, heavy breathing on the telephone was held to be an assault. There is no legal exception that can be argued for allowing heavy ecclesiastical breathing down the telephone not to constitute an assault, if it engendered, as perceived by the victim: “reasonable fear” of an imminent attack.

Therefore, and likewise, from the analogy to contempts, it is the perception of threats (and contempts in general) by a Parliament’s majority that is the crucial point, not whether some (or indeed all) Catholic members thought so. The spiritual/temporal argument is, to use whyisitso’s expression, hot air.

Some may regard contempt laws as anachronistic, and I have some sympathy for that point of view, “contempt” being based on the divine right of Kings not to be insulted or mocked. I think leaving it as common law (as NSW has done) is probably better than codifying it as we can then continue with world precedents, applied with discretion, particularly UK case law, the mother of all modern parliaments, as well as use of all Oz state precedent cases.

(BTW whyisitso, you need to grasp the difference between arguable cases and cases with no merit at all. Legal practitioners claim no “key” to higher moralities, only to an understanding of law and preparing arguable cases. Dislike of religion is irrelevant to proposing arguable cases. My “personal agenda” has nothing to do with my ethical duties to the court and a client even if I considered him to be as guilty as hell, although in your case, in another timeframe, defending you on a charge of blasphemy under Ecclesiastical law, would sorely test me to the limit.)

One of the things that cause practitioners of law to be so poorly regarded by the general population in this country is their propensity to use their twisted, untested knowledge of the technicalities of law to further their personal agendas, in this case visceral hatred of the catholic church and its doctrines.

As Christopher Pearson noted in this morning’s Weekend Australian the fury vented on Pell completed passed by Archbishop Jensen who made much the same points as Pell.

The intolerance informed by hatred exhibited by these lawyers is quite depressing, particularly as they often like to get on their high horses and preach their own beliefs to the rest of us on the basis that they alone possess the key to higher moralities.