In a decision on Friday, Rangiah dismissed the application and ordered the applicants to pay half of the media outlets’ legal costs.
“There would be considerable resources expended by the Registrar and exposure to an order for costs in prosecuting a proceeding of uncertain strength,” he said in his judgment.
Antoinette Lattouf addresses the media outside Federal Court in February.Credit: Janie Barrett
However, he said that it would “still be open” to the group of letter-writers “to themselves commence a proceeding for contempt” under a different part of the Federal Court Rules.
He said he considered they were “‘the ones most naturally placed’ to conduct proceedings for contempt of court”.
Rangiah said he was “satisfied that all of the [media parties] … have established a reasonably arguable basis for defending the allegations of contempt”.
The media parties had “demonstrated a reasonably arguable case” that the suppression order only protected the nine letter-writers who had originally sought the order “and only protected information derived from material on the court file or from the proceedings”, the judge said.
“Further, they have a reasonably arguable case, that in the absence of being notified of the identities of the relevant nine [letter-writers] … they could not know what information they were prohibited from disclosing.”
In considering costs, Rangiah said the “abject failure” of the media parties to respond to correspondence from lawyers for the letter-writers was “discourteous and unhelpful”.
“They have not provided any explanation for their conduct. Moreover, it is possible that a response explaining why they did not consider the order to have been breached might have avoided the present application being made.”
However, he also said the letter-writers had “no reasonable basis to bring the proceeding” against the two in-house lawyers, and “no reasonable case” relating to an article that was not published by the Herald or The Age.
“Further, even after they became aware of the … [media outlets’] arguments they continued with the … application, taking the risk that it may be unsuccessful,” he said.
In a landmark decision last month, Rangiah ordered the ABC to pay Lattouf $70,000 in compensation after finding it terminated her employment in 2023 to “appease … pro-Israel lobbyists” because “she held political opinions opposing the Israeli military campaign in Gaza”.
A separate hearing on pecuniary penalties, which would be paid to Lattouf, will be held at a later date.
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