Adjudication No. 663 (August 1993) [1993] APC 55

ADJUDICATION No. 663 (August 1993)

The Press Council has dismissed a complaint against the Sydney Morning Herald over an article telling the story of a woman who claims to have recognised a man living "almost next door" as the torturer who had made her a victim in Communist Hungary.

The article outlined the story as told by Magda Bardy ... that she and her first husband were arrested in Budapest in 1951; that she had been held and battered for four weeks; that she and her husband were taken to a prison from which she emerged three years later and from which her husband never emerged; that 42 years later, while sitting in a dentist's waiting room, she recognised the dentist as her torturer in Budapest.

The paper named the dentist as Tibor Vajda, who "For the past 30 years, ... has been living quietly and comfortably several kilometres from the Bardy's home in Dover Heights".

The paper also published details of how Mrs Bardy, after she had migrated to Australia, had tried to discover the fate of her first husband and how she had learnt to her amazement that Vajda was now living in Sydney, too. It also recorded various pieces of evidence which Mrs Bardy claimed confirmed the identification.

To Mr and Mrs Bardy the dentist said: "I've never been in the secret police". To the paper, before publication of the story, he would say only: "It is a case of mistaken identity".

The complaint came from David Evans, who has no connection with the case other than as an occasional reader of the Sydney Morning Herald. He expressed his outrage that a person could be "accused, tried and found guilty" by a newspaper; his position was that a person was innocent until proved guilty.

To which the Sydney Morning Herald replied: "First, there is no court which could in Australia look at the Tibor Vajda case. Secondly, the article related to incidents which occurred after the Second World War; the War Crimes Commission does not look at cases occurring after the war. In other words, there is no court to which Magda Bardy could turn.

"The Herald investigated the Magda Bardy claims thoroughly, conducting inquiries both in Australia and through sources in Hungary. We commissioned independent forensic handwriting analysis. We looked extensively into the issue of identification, and into the matters relating to Tibor Vajda's qualifications.

"We published the article because we believed it to be true and in the public interest."

The paper later published two letters supporting its actions, and one criticising them. It did not publish a letter from the complainant, who later wrote to the Press Council that he objected to the paper setting itself up as "court, judge and jury".

The presumption of innocence and the law's rigorous demands for proof beyond reasonable doubt do not, and in the Council's view should not, hinder the process of investigative journalism. In a free society, the media is free to accept, and express its position on, even the most sweeping of allegations provided it is prepared to stand up to the legal consequences. That is the freedom, and responsibility, editors and their advisers have.

In an unpublished letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, Tibor Vajda denied the allegations made by Mrs Bardy, said that he would "instigate immediate official investigations in Hungary to clear my name and character"; he also threatened legal action against those that have "ruined my name, reputation and livelihood".