In the context of the argument in many European countries that the publication of the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad was justified by reason of a citizen's right to free speech and expression, it is instructive to reflect on the following wise words of the former chief justice of Ireland, O'Higgins CJ, in Re: Kennedy and McCann [1976] IR 382, with regards its interplay with the laws of contempt of court:

'The right of free speech and the full expression of opinion are valued rights. Their preservation, however, depends on the observance of the acceptable limit that they must not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the state.

'Contempt of court carries the exercise of these rights beyond this acceptable limit because it tends to bring the administration of justice into disrepute and to undermine the confidence which the people should have in judges appointed under the constitution to administer justice in our courts.'

The learned chief justice clearly addresses the issue of limits to free speech, in the context of the law of contempt of court. His words put paid to the boast of some Westerners that free speech is some kind of absolute and limitless right.

It perhaps resonates more relevance today in Malaysia in the context of the Metramac contempt of court proceedings now under way in our Court of Appeal. The foundation of that proceeding is that any act done or writing published calculated to bring a court or a judge of the court into contempt, or to lower his authority, is a form of contempt of court. This form of contempt of court has been characterised as scandalising a court or a judge (see R v Gray [1900] 2 QB 36).

When mere mortal judges are not allowed to be scandalised by contemptuous statements and publications even in Western democracies and limits are set to freedom of speech in order to check such derision, how can it be argued in some quarters that the scandalisation and mockery of the Holy Prophet (or Jesus Christ or the Buddha, for that matter) should be allowed carte blanche because of free speech?