Journalistic privilege

By: Law is Cool · October 23, 2009 · Filed Under Constitutional Law, Media Law · 1 Comment 

Paper fights to shield its source

Tonda MacCharles writes for the Toronto Star:

The constitutional guarantee of a free press is “meaningless” if it does not protect journalists from being forced to reveal the identity of confidential sources, media lawyers argued Wednesday before the Supreme Court of Canada.

In the second case this year revolving around the role confidential sources play in freedom of the press, lawyers for The Globe and Mail, a group of Quebec newspapers, the Fédération des journalistes professionelles du Québec, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association urged judges to shield the identity of a source key to the reporting of the sponsorship scandal in Quebec.

If the client-lawyer relationship is privileged, why shouldn’t the journalist-source relationship be privileged too?

AdviceScene