Appeal decision: 'The Two Dannys'

The Court of Appeal (Supreme Court) of Victoria announced its decision on the appeal and ALLOWED the appeal sought by Catch The Fire Ministries, Pastor Danny Nalliah and Pastor Daniel Scot.

All three Justices - Nettle, Ashley and Neave - agreed that the appeal should be allowed. In particular, the argument that the Tribunal had wrongly interpreted Section 8 of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act, the basic section that sets out the offence of religious vilification was successful.
The Court gave orders that the Tribunal orders re 'penalties' (advertisement, not saying similar things) be set aside, and that the matter be sent back to VCAT to be heard by a different judge with no new evidence.
The Court also ordered that the costs relating to the previous Tribunal hearing and the next one be decided by the Member who hears it.
The Court ordered that the Islamic Council of Victoria pay half of the costs incurred by Catch the Fire Ministries and the pastors in conducting the appeal.

Pastor Danny Nalliah and Pastor Daniel Scot welcomed the decision, as the statements made by the Justices show that the decision by Judge Higgins was flawed.
However, the process is far from over!

Click here to read the FULL decision.

Click here for more details and a report on the decision.

Click here for Catch the Fire Ministries Media Release.

Media:
Initial reports
Court orders vilification retrial
The Age, Barney Zwartz, Religion Editor, December 14, 2006.

Church race case back to tribunal
Herald Sun, AAP, December 14, 2006

Detailed reports:
Pastors will keep 'telling truth' on Muslims
The Age, Barney Zwartz, December 15, 2006.

Free speech win for Islam critics
Herald Sun, Craig Binnie, December 15, 2006.

Preachers claim win
The Australian, December 15, 2006

A Lack of faith in these laws
Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun, December 15, 2006.
Initial brief comment on his blog.... supporting the pastors...
Also comments on the blog....

Pastors' toil and trouble
Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun, December 20, 2006
Full length column.
Click here to join the blog.

Salt Shakers Email:
Email sent following the decision, highlighting some of the findings in the decision.

Two Danny's case - further update
The main reasons for upholding the appeal (striking down the guilty verdict and the penalties imposed by Judge Higgins) appear to be that Judge Higgins made some considerable errors of judgement in interpretation of what constituted vilification. Some of these interpretations appear to arise from accepting minority opinions of previous judgements rather than majority opinions.

Justice Nettle stated in his findings "In my view it was calculated to lead to error for a secular tribunal to attempt to assess the theological propriety of what was asserted at the Seminar."

He also stated "The Tribunal's concentration on the issue of whether Pastor Scot's statements represented a "balanced" presentation of the religious beliefs of Muslims, and the Tribunal's conclusion, based on Father McInerney's opinion, that they did not, appear to me to have resulted in the Tribunal disregarding significant aspects of Pastor Scot's statements which, at least arguably, went a long way to ameliorating any risk of inciting hatred of Muslims (even if they did nothing to redress the imbalance perceived by Father McInerney). Thus, to take the Tribunal's 19 findings as to what Pastor Scot said at the Seminar:...

Justice Nettle then listed 14 things Daniel Scot "DID NOT SAY" that Judge Higgins said he had said.
One of these was the often-quoted statement that "Muslims are demons". Justice Nettle makes it clear that Pastor Scot DID NOT say that! He also mentioned a number of things that Daniel Scot was criticised for saying that were actually quotes from the Qu'ran or where he quoted other peoples' statements.

The Appeal judges also suggest that the 'audience' to which a statement is made should be taken into consideration and that too little attention was paid to the last third of the seminar which dealt with loving Muslims and how to befriend them to reach them for Jesus Christ.

The Justices found no conflict between the R & RT Act and the Australian Constitution.

Clearly there were many things wrong with the Decision handed down by Judge Higgins. Those in the media, and those Christians who supported the Muslims throughout the case and continue to uphold the validity of Higgins judgement, such as the Uniting Church Justice and International Mission Unit run by Mark Zirnsak, and the Catholic Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission, should read this appeal judgement and re-think their position in light of the truth.

We are getting a legal opinion on this judgement and its ramifications to churches/ministries. We will forward that opinion early next year.

Peter Stokes, 14 December 2006.