RTÉ has brought a High Court challenge to a decision of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission that the organisation infringed its own taste and decency regulations by using a graphic of a Bible and rosary beads in a TV news broadcast about the Ferns report into clerical child abuse.
The complaints commission decision of November 2005 arose after a member of the public complained about a broadcast on RTÉ's Six One News on October 25th, 2005, concerning publication that day of the report of the Ferns inquiry into complaints of child sexual abuse against Catholic clergy in the Ferns diocese.
The complaint related to RTÉ's use, via a graphic backdrop to the news report, an image of a book appearing to be a Bible or a breviary (a priest's missal) together with rosary beads.
In his letter of complaint of October 29th 2005, John Whelan, of Edenbrook Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin, complained that the use of the images amounted to a profane use of sacramentals and that he found it offensive.
The complaints commission studied the objection and sought and procured a response from RTÉ in which the State broadcaster rejected any breach of taste and decency guidelines. However, the commission upheld the complaint and found RTÉ's regulations on taste and decency standards had been violated.
At the High Court yesterday, Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, for RTÉ, secured leave from Mr Justice Micheal Peart to bring judicial review proceedings challenging the decision of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission.
The application was grounded on an affidavit from Mr Ed Mulhall, RTÉ's managing director of news and current affairs, who said the publication of the Ferns report and its contents were matters of great public interest and concern and the matter was widely reported.
Mr Mulhall said he was legally advised that, in deciding that RTÉ's use of a graphic image of a book appearing to be a Bible or a breviary, and rosary beads, breached RTÉ's programme maker guidelines on taste and decency, the complaints commission had acted either with no jurisdiction or in excess of its jurisdiction.
Section 19 of the Broadcasting Act 2001 provided that the commission, upon direction of the relevant Minister, should specify a code of standards to be complied with relating to the taste and decency of programme material, Mr Mulhall said. However, the commission had not to date prepared such a code and it therefore had no jurisdiction to adjudicate upon complaints regarding alleged want of taste or decency in broadcast material.