Shannon Kari reports:
Freedom of expression guarantees in the Charter of Rights do not extend to an absolute right for the media to protect confidential sources, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday.
The court, in an 8-1 decision, ruled against the National Post and ordered it to turn over an allegedly forged document and the envelope used to send it to the newspaper in 2001.
[…]
The Supreme Court indicated that the legal test to be applied is the “Wigmore criteria,” established nearly 90 years ago by the U.S. legal scholar John Henry Wigmore.
The National Post failed to meet the fourth criteria, which was that the law enforcement interest in obtaining the document, was greater than the public interest in protecting the identity of a source, said the majority.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2998466#ixzz0nGQJCCuH
Read more in the National Post.
Additional preliminary coverage on the decision can be found here:
- Montreal Gazette: Supreme Court rejects media bid to protect all sources
- Canoe: National Post loses case to protect source’s identity
- Globe and Mail: Press can’t protect sources, Supreme Court says
Great thanks to the reader who compiled these links.