A reporter with a daily newspaper in Ontario may be imprisoned if he fails to comply with a court order to hand over to the police his notes of interviews with a convicted drug dealer. The police have asked reporter Bill Dunphy, who writes for the Hamilton Spectator, to turn over his interviews with drug dealer Paul Gravelle, according to the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE).
The police are asking for the information to assist in their investigation of a 1998 murder. Andre Gravelle, Paul's brother, is charged in the murder. The new Criminal Code Provision called a "production order" came into effect on September 15, 2004, and allows a judge to compel a person to produce documents or data relevant to the commission of an offence. Failure to comply is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or up to six months in jail, a release issued by CFJE/Internaitonal Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) said.
Former CJFE Board member and lawyer for the Hamilton Spectator, Brian Rogers, finds the actions of the police objectionable, saying, "It's dangerous, because it's all too easy to look to journalists as a source for information." He added that a journalist's job is to publish their information, which makes them an "easy and attractive target."
"Dunphy could go to prison under a new provision of the criminal code that forces journalists to act as police informants or law enforcement auxiliaries, which is not their job," Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. "As a matter of principle, the media should never be subject to constraint by the police or the courts, even when limited to a criminal investigation," RSF continued. "Furthermore, there is no reason to think Dunphy's notes will be of use to investigators. We hope the judge will be lenient towards him, and that parliament will take another look at this problematic provision."
In 2001 and 2002, Dunphy interviewed convicted drug dealer Paul Gravelle, whose younger brother, André, is accused of participating in the murders of lawyer Lynn Gilbank and her husband Fred in 1998, when she was defending another dealer.
"The police investigating Gilbank's murder are convinced that Dunphy's interviews could provide them with new leads," Hamilton Spectator editor Roger Gillespie told RSF. "We have no reason to think that his interviews with Gravelle will provide them with evidence of the brother's involvement in the lawyer's murder. The police came to us in the spring of 2005 with the aim of getting Bill's notes. When we refused, criminal proceedings were initiated against him."
The Hamilton Spectator has had a run-in with the courts before. In December 2004 another Hamilton Spectator journalist, Ken Peters, was fined more that $30,000 for refusing to reveal a confidential source but was saved from imprisonment when his source came forward. Peters was fortunate that he did not face jail time for his work.
Paul Knox, Chair of CJFE's Canadian Issues committee, is concerned at these recent efforts to turn journalists into a second arm of the police. "All of these attempts to use information gathered by journalists in the course of their work will inevitably have a chilling effect on their ability to keep the public informed," Knox said.
The case is set to return to court in the next few weeks.
