Court Opinion

ID: 9750765
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:31:01.345437+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:21.558276
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
concurring.
In my view, Section 5(e) of the Human Relations Act,1 43 P.S. § 955(e) (1964),2 insofar as it authorizes the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission’s order directing the Pittsburgh Press to cease and desist publication of “situation wanted” advertisements, is unconstitutional under article I, section 7 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.3 As Mr. Justice Stewart observed:
“If government can dictate the layout of a newspaper’s advertising pages today, what is there to prevent it from dictating the news pages tomorrow? .
*323[T]he constitutional guarantee of a free press is more than precatory. . . . [I]t is a clear command that government must never be allowed to lay its heavy editorial hand on any newspaper in this country.”
Pittsburgh Press Company v. Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, 413 U.S. 376, 403-4, 93 S.Ct. 2553, 2568 (1973) (Stewart, J., dissenting, joined by Douglas, J., and specially joined by Blackmun, J.). See generally, William Goldman Theatres v. Dana, 405 Pa. 83, 173 A.2d 59 (1961) (Pa.Const. art. I, § 7 bars prior restraints). The Commonwealth Court properly reversed the order of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. I therefore join the Court’s affirmance.

. Act of October 27, 1955, P.L. 744, as amended.

. § 5(e) makes it unlawful “[f]or any person ... to aid, abet, incite, compel or coerce the doing of any act declared by this section to be an unlawful discriminatory practice . . . .”

. Pa.Const., art. I, § 7, provides:
“[T]he printing press shall be free to every person who may undertake to examine the proceedings of the Legislature or any branch of government, no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man, and every citizen may freely speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse’ of that liberty. . . . ”