Appeal is favourable for Catch the Fire Ministries

Assessing whether the seminar was “balanced” or taking into account whether the Muslim attendees were “offended”, as the tribunal did, was irrelevant. “(T)he question under Section 8 is not whether conduct offended a group of persons, but whether it incites hatred or other relevant emotion of (…) toward that group of persons”.

Altogether Justice Nettle provides a far more sympathetic view of Pastor Scot and his audience, drawing attention to the many exhortations to love and to evangelise Muslims.

Having read Justice Nettle’s judgment, and even allowing for some contrary points of judgment from the other two judges. it is not difficult to consider Pastor Scot to have been very poorly treated by the tribunal, and for that matter, by those churchmen led by the Victorian Council of Churches who were so quick to denounce the two pastors with their intemperate language immediately following the tribunal’s flawed judgment two years ago.

Does the upholding of the appeal mean that the case against the two pastors will now collapse when it is re-assessed by the tribunal?

Probably, although not necessarily on all points. We need to continue to uphold the two pastors in our prayers, praying for a just outcome.

Does the upholding of the appeal mean that Christians now have nothing to fear from the Act?

It is almost certainly true that the tribunal’s mishandling of the matter has made the Act seem more draconian than at least it was meant to be understood and enforced. However, the whole affair highlights the totally unsatisfactory nature of the Act as it now stands.

The Supreme Court's judgment throws into question the appropriateness of having religious vilification issues brought to the Equal Opportunity Commission, a point a number of Church Leaders led by the Presbyterian Church of Victoria and the Australian Christian Lobby were making to the Government in early 2006.

As noted above, the judges pointed out that Section 8 of Act, unlike related paragraphs in the Commonwealth anti-racism legislation, does not focus on whether a group or persons have been offended, but whether hatred or other negative emotions have been incited against such persons. However the Victorian complaints procedure, mediated through the EOC, tends to deal with matters on the basis of offence given.

For example, only those who feel they or their religious group have been “vilified” may made a complaint through the EOC. We now know, as a result of the Supreme Court’s judgment, that the legislation has nothing to do with giving offence.

The civil provisions should therefore be removed in their entirety from the Act so that the only action against incitement to hatred, or better, “to cause physical harm to persons and or property” should proceed through police investigation and a decision by the DPP to prosecute.

The second problem is that the current legislation confuses two very different concepts: vilification and incitement.