Free Speech Union Reaffirms Opposition To Harmful Digital Communications Act
The Free Speech Union has seen a Stuff report suggesting we are indifferent to the risks the Harmful Digital Communications Act poses to free speech. We are not. The Act is bad law. It was well meant but naïve, and we have said so for years. Nothing has happened to soften that judgement.
“Stuff reports that Mr Bradbury now appears to share our concerns,” said Stephen Franks, Chair of the Free Speech Union. “If he believes he has been wrongly gagged, he should get in touch. Given his long hostility to the Free Speech Union that might be difficult for him, but we regularly defend people many of us disagree with. We choose cases that highlight key principles.”
The Act gives courts powers that can too easily be used to shut down lawful expression, including speech about powerful people that the public has every right to hear. The Free Speech Union has fought to reform it for years, and is not stopping.
“Wanting a law reformed has never obliged anyone to disarm while it remains on the books,” said Mr Franks. “Every citizen may use the protections Parliament has enacted, whatever any of us thinks of them. Lawyers do it every day, applying rules for their clients that they would rather see abolished tomorrow. That is not hypocrisy. It is the ordinary use of the law as it stands, and it is exactly why leaving bad law in force is so dangerous. Bad law does not sit quietly. It gets used.”
The Free Speech Union’s position is straightforward. The Harmful Digital Communications Act is bad law. It should be substantially reformed. We will keep saying so, plainly, until Parliament acts.
