Contempt of Court
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Wednesday, December 9th, 2009At the R v the Internet conference last week Attorney-General Chris Finlayson said there’s a government announcement on the law of contempt looming. A reference to the Law Commission perhaps?
Fact Suppression
Sunday, November 29th, 2009Which is worse: our name suppression laws, or the media’s coverage of them? Today, the Sunday Star-Times leads with a story headlined “Identity of high profile drug accused kept secret”. The story is about a familiar one: public figure gets name suppression; cue outrage. Never mind that this particular defendant’s name was not suppressed between […]
Upcoming seminar on the Internet and suppression issues
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009The Law Commission, InternetNZ and the Ministry of Justice are hosting a seminar on the Internet and the courts. It will be looking at issues such as: • Undermining of suppression orders • Lack of jurisdiction over material hosted outside NZ • Online discussion of crimes and trials potentially being a contempt of court • […]
Sure enough…
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009The Solicitor-General has applied for Vince Siemer to be held in contempt of court for breaching the court order that he remove from his website his article about a suppressed HC judgment. (This time, he has sensibly just gone for a three-month jail term, seeking to avoid the Bill of Rights right-to-jury issues that continue […]
Siemer in contempt again?
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009Yet another chapter is written in the Vince Siemer saga. In this episode, Vince decides that a High Court order suppressing publication of a decision doesn’t apply to him. The decision concerned some pre-trial rulings in concerning the Uruwera defendants, so it’s pretty big deal. Justice Winkelmann suppressed the decision, it seems, out of concern […]
Clayton’s defence
Friday, July 31st, 2009Provocation. The defence you use when you’re not really putting on a defence. The end of the Weatherston trial is a relief to Sophie Elliott’s family, the nation… and (for much less serious reasons) to me personally. Over the past few weeks I’ve received a string of calls from reporters wanting me to comment on […]
Not quite…
Sunday, July 12th, 2009The Herald On Sunday has a story on the Solicitor-General’s investigation of blogs and social networking sites that are commenting on the Clayton Weatherston trial in ways that may prejudice the trial. I’m quoted explaining the reason for the law of contempt, and also as saying it has nothing to do with shutting down freedom […]
Pannick time!
Friday, May 29th, 2009David Pannick QC agrees with me (though there may be some chance that he does not read this blog and reached his conclusion independently) that the rules about interviewing jurors are too harsh.
Media law tsunami in Canada
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009A wave of important media law cases is hitting the Canadian Supreme Court. One’s on qualified privilege and I’ve discussed it here. The others include cases on confidential sources and bail hearing publication bans. I’m inclined to think that the guidance on free speech issues from the Canadian SC tends to be the most thoughtful, […]
Times held in contempt for interviewing jurors
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009The Times of London has been convicted of contempt for quoting the foreman of a jury criticising the result of a baby death case. (It was a 10-2 majority verdict; he was in the minority). His point: the jury was overwhelmed by expert evidence, which at the end of the day could only be speculative. He said: […]
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