Regulations and the parent Act, one will come to realise that the powers
of the 2nd respondent are clear and the same authority has been
conferred with powers to make rules subject to the limits stipulated in
the parent Act.
As regards ground No. 6 learned counsel for the applicants
submitted that regulation 12 prohibits overly broad and ambiguous
categories of content. He argued that the type of speech prohibited are
wide ranging and poorly defined hence ambiguous and restricts freedom
of expression. Learned senior state attorney responded, I think correctly,
that the applicants have not understood the provision. He contended
that the provisions were not intended to apply to the whole public but
only to the licenced online content service providers who must have
professional background to run the website by making sure that the
prohibited contents do not form part of their own websites. Apart from
the fact that this argument has been repeated, it is also devoid of merit.
It is not clear how the said regulation contravened the parent Act
particularly where it is clear that the Parliament did not limit the
categories of the content.
Ground No. 7 is on the conditions for registration. According to the
submission on part of the applicants, the principle of proportionality
applies. As said above, this ground was not pleaded in the statement
and evidenced in the supporting affidavits. Besides, I doubt if this
argument can pass the test of Article 30 of the Constitution. After all,
22
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