Free Speech on trial again.
As inferred some weeks ago, the Eames judgement was to be appealed.
The appeal was formally served on the VGS and filed with the Court of Appeal today.
This is the judgement whereby Justice Geoffrey Eames of the Victorian Supreme Court declared Australia's leading corruption author Raymond Hoser and Kotabi Publishing guilty of the arcane and ancient "crime" of scandalizing the courts.
The fines ordered by Eames were a total of $5,000, but the sting was in the so-called "costs" also ordered against Hoser of an estimated $30,000.
The statements were published in the best-selling book "Victoria Police Corruption - 2".
With the Eames judgement being so replete with factual and legal errors, it would probably have been remiss of both Kotabi Publishing, Raymond Hoser and their lawyers not to appeal the judgement.
Furthermore, if the judgement were to be left unchallenged, free speech in Australia would well and truly be a thing of the past ... if it ever really existed in the true sense of the words.
The appeal is based on the numerous factual errors in the Eames judgement, as well as various legal arguments raised by Eames, which Hoser's lawyers disagree with.
It is notable that on the ABC's Terry Lane show last weekend, it was noted that the alleged crime of scandalizing the courts was abolished in the UK in the 1930's and is not a chargeable crime in the USA, due to the over-riding concerns of the "First Amendment".
At the time of the judgement, Hoser noted that Eames had used his position as Supreme Court Judge to launch into a character attack on Hoser relying on a number of untrue allegations against Hoser (as written in the judgement) to support his attack. This is even though Eames had information before him (sourced from his own (government) side) to show that his statements were factually incorrect.
Further details will be posted at this webserver as they become available.
The appeal documents as served (including a full listing of the various grounds of appeal) can be viewed at the following link:
http://www.smuggled.com/appeal1.htm
or as a pdf file at: http://www.smuggled.com/pdf1/appeal1.pdf
Further details of the case to date and related matters can be found by accessing releases, transcripts and the like from the sites:
http://www.smuggled.com/arc2001.htm
and
http://www.smuggled.com/arc2000.htm
It will also be interesting to see if either the Herald-Sun or Age newspapers will report on the fact that this appeal has been formally served and lodged, bearing in mind the fact that they gave undue prominence to statements made by Eames in his judgement, without providing any balancing and correcting comments from either Hoser, Kotabi or their lawyers.