By Robert Hart, Staff ReporterMINISTER OF Health John Junor has refused to scrap a proposal to implement penalties of up to $1 million, or 10 years imprisonment, on media houses found guilty of the 'unauthorised publication' of reports revealing sensitive information about a child.
Instead, the Joint Select Committee examining the Child Care and Protection Act has resolved to send the recommendation to the Houses of Parliament to be examined at a higher level.
Addressing yesterday's sitting, the Health Minister, who is also committee chairman, made reference to yesterday's Gleaner editorial which questioned the rationale for the proposed fines.
"I am accustomed to taking blows. I don't mind taking the blow for ensuring children are protected," he said.
He added: "I will not resile from the fact that where a publication is made that is prejudicial to the interest of the child it ought to be punishable."
The Health Minister suggested that the press seemed to think it was "above any fine at all because any fine at all would be an infringement of press freedom."
"If that is what they are saying then I am not there. If they are saying that they consider the imposition excessive, then I can understand that and I would open it for consideration by the committee," the Health Minister added.
Subsequently, neither the committee members nor the interest groups present argued against the fine.
THE LEVEL OF FINES
Opposition Member of Parliament and committee member Clive Mullings suggested that the media's concern dealt specifically with the level of fines. "We ought not to be overly concerned in that if there is in the legislation a restriction, there must be a sanction for the breach of that restriction," he told the committee.
During its previous sitting, the committee decided that the penalty for the offence should be increased from the general penalty for other offences ($250,000) to the $1 million fine.
The Gleaner editorial yesterday noted that the newspaper was in support of moves to protect the nation's children but argued against the imposition of penalties as it was not the practice of the media to publish names of children involved in certain court cases. "Media houses," the editorial noted, "have strict internal policies against the naming of children in court matters. And we scrupulously guard against the unintentional identification of minors by association."
