Speech to International Press Freedom Day Rally in Support of Julian Assange

Remarks by QCCL President Michael Cope on 3 May 2021

On behalf of the QCCL i thank the organisers for the invitation to speak today and I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land upon which we meet.

I will make a few remarks about Julian’s current situation, but after that i think it appropriate on international press freedom day to make some remarks about how our laws need to change to protect press freedom

We of course welcome the decision of the English Court to refuse to extradite Julian. However he remains in the Belmarsh prison a place usually reserved for terrorists. He has been held in effect in solitary confinement for 2 years. In our view solitary confinement is never acceptable.

Despite this he has been refused bail. The reason for that being what you would expect - he has skipped bail before. His father explains that he has every reason not to do that again. But even more important the decision flies in face of the Court’s finding that, and i quote

Mr. Assange suffers from a recurrent depressive disorder, which was severe in December 2019, and sometimes accompanied by psychotic features (hallucinations), often with ruminative suicidal ideas

Notwithstanding the strong and constant support he receives from his family and friends, Mr. Assange has remained either severely or moderately clinically depressed throughout his detention at Belmarsh. he has had suicidal or self-harming thoughts, felt despairing or hopeless and had made plans to end his life.


It is our view that Julian should be released on bail immediately.

I now wish to move on to some changes in our law to protect journalists and leakers.

The case for the reforms is based in the fundamental right of freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech is rooted in a distrust of the government’s capacity to regulate speech particularly political speech, where it is always in a position of a conflict of interest. This conflict is no starker when it is seeking to restrain the use of embarrassing information obtained by journalists

The first reform i want to discuss is the need to introduce a law that protects journalists sources. Our current laws are inadequate

In our view any law should contain the following elements:

1. the definition of journalist should be extended beyond the traditional categories to cover citizen journalists
2. The law must create a presumptive right for a journalist to not to disclose a source, departure from which should be justified by the person seeking access to the information
3. the law should apply to any body which has the power to compel the giving of testimony or production of documents
4. However the right cannot be absolute.
5. A court should be able to override the privilege where:
(a) the information is critical for a court case
(b) disclosure of the information is necessary in a public interest which outweighs the public interest served by the journalist’s immunity
(c) In assessing whether there is an overriding public interest a court should have regard to all the circumstances including:
(i) Whether the proceeding is a criminal or civil proceeding
(ii) Whether the journalist has given an undertaking of confidentiality

We also need better protection for those who do the leaking - the whistleblowers.

When it comes to leakers we would argue the following principles should apply:

1 the first principle must be that leakers should not be subject to any penalty whatsoever where the leak exposes illegality or other clear-cut wrongdoing by the government.

2 in all other cases where the government seeks to impose criminal penalties, it should be required to prove that the leaker lacked a reasonable basis for believing that the public interest in disclosure outweighed identifiable national security harms.

3. In the case of other penalties such as dismissal a lesser standard is proposed being that the government must show that the leaker lacked an objectively substantial basis for believing the public interest in disclosure outweighed any identifiable national security harms.

In the absence of any explicit protection of freedom of speech and a free press in Australian law, it is critical that those who leak information in the public interest and the Australian press are provided with necessary protection to enable them to fulfil their democratic role of holding the Government to account and keeping the public informed. The reforms i have mentioned will provide that protection.

For what it is worth it is my opinion that the appeal by the US government is unlikely to succeed. We then need to bring Julian home. But we also need to work hard to give journalists and whistleblowers in this country the protection they need to do their work which is vital to our democracy.

Thank you for listening.