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ARTICLE · 28 OCTOBER 2012

Free Speech Is Not Guaranteed In Australia

Stacks Law Firm
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The High Court has ruled there is an implied freedom of speech under the Australian constitution, but it is not absolute.

AustraliaGovernment, Public Sector
Maurie Stack
Maurie Stack
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We hear it all the time on American TV shows – "the constitutional right to free speech".

It enables people to say the most outrageous things - such as the Kansas religious group who turn up at military funerals holding up signs saying 'Thank God for dead soldiers' and 'Pray for more dead soldiers'.

Their twisted belief is that God is punishing America for homosexuality by allowing soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan.

A grieving father took the small Westboro Baptist Church to the Supreme Court – the highest court in the United States - to ban them from funerals as a breach of privacy.

The court decided 8 to 1 that the First Amendment to the US Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights enacted in 1789, meant the church had the right to protest even though they inflicted pain on others.

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