Reporters have no constitutional right to offer their sources blanket confidentiality, Canada’s Supreme Court said in a landmark ruling on Friday.
In the first pronouncement of its kind, the court ruled by an 8-1 majority that journalists could offer sources protection, but that if prosecutors subsequently demanded to know who those sources were, the courts would decide the merits of confidentiality promises on a case-by-case basis.
“No journalist can give a secret source an absolute assurance of confidentiality,” the judges said.
The ruling is a defeat for the National Post newspaper, which had demanded the quashing of a police search warrant for a document and an envelope given to one of the paper’s journalists by a confidential source in 2001.
The Canadian Association of Journalists said the ruling was “a significant blow to every journalist’s ability to protect whistleblowers.”
The document purported to show former Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien had leaned on a federal bank to approve a loan to an ailing hotel that owed his family money.
Chretien and his lawyers said the document was forged and complained to police.
The judges said promises to keep sources secret had to be balanced against other important public interests, including the investigation of a serious crime.
“In some situations, the public’s interest in protecting a secret source from disclosure may be outweighed by other competing public interests and a promise of confidentiality will not in such cases justify the suppression of the evidence,” they said.
The National Post had argued that in cases where there was a dispute over whether a source could remain secret, the onus should be on prosecutors to show why a criminal probe was more important than a promise of confidentiality. The court disagreed.
The court did make clear that in some situations the public interest in protecting a secret source from disclosure could conceivably outweigh other competing public interests.
“In those circumstances the courts will recognize an immunity against disclosure of sources to whom confidentiality has been promised,” it said.
Police wanted the document and the envelope to look for evidence such as fingerprints or DNA that could help identify the source.
The National Post, which estimates it has run up a legal bill of C$850,000 (US$820,000) on the case so far, said the battle had been worth fighting.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a US$1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent. With China’s demand for agricultural goods and metals from Latin America growing, Xi will participate in the APEC summit in Lima then head to the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also make a state visit to Brazil. Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un renewed his call for a “limitless” expansion of his military nuclear program to counter US-led threats in comments reported yesterday that were his first direct criticism toward Washington since US president-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory on Oct. 6. At a conference with army officials on Friday, Kim condemned the US for updating its nuclear deterrence strategies with South Korea and solidifying three-way military cooperation involving Japan, which he portrayed as an “Asian NATO” that was escalating tensions and instability in the region. Kim also criticized the US over its support of Ukraine against a prolonged Russian invasion.
RSS