To: Paul Bluck
From: Phyl Crawford
Date: 23 September 1998
Subject: Closure advice to Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA)
The complaint from EFA was that it paid the application fee to Office of Film & Literature Classification (OFLC) and it failed to provide the service, ie classify the document which was the Federal Court judgement in Brown and others vs the Classification Board.
OFLC responded on 17 July 98 that it was concerned it may not have the power to classify a Federal Court judgment and in so doing may be at risk of contempt of court (see f3).
I asked OFLC for copies of legal advice and also if C had right of appeal to Classification Review Board (see f 13).
OFLC response is at ff 107-108 with attachments as requested 109-99 and the court judgements at ff 19-98. The legal advice re appeal rights to Classification Review Board is at 109-110 and you have already commented on this at ff 112-113.
I propose to write to C, enclose the letter from OFLC at ff 107-108, state that in my opinion OFLC has made a decision which is reasonably open for it to make and do not consider there has been any defective administration; therefore no purpose in any further investigation. I will remind C it may ask for a refund of application fee which OFLC is keen to provide. If C wants to pursue the issue it has the option of applying for a Court ruling on the extent of powers of OFLC to classify a Court judgement.
Phyl Crawford
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