Suppression orders
« Previous EntriesSuper-Injunction denied
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010A fascinating insight into super-injunctions
English football captain John Terry’s failed attempt to obtain an injunction gagging revelation of his affair with his team-mate’s ex contains a lot of fascinating information about so-called super-injunctions. A super-injunction is a gag that not only prevents particular information from being published, it also stops anyone even mentioning the injunction. […]
Name revelation
Friday, January 22nd, 2010I see that Whale Oil has been publishing a series of posts under the heading “Interesting names” that contain nothing but a person’s name. I might take a wild stab in the dark and guess that those were names that had been suppressed. Is he breaking the law?
It’s an offence to publish a name (or […]
Solicitor-General not going Whale hunting
Thursday, January 14th, 2010The Solicitor-General has decided not to pursue Mr Oil for contempt of court “at this stage”, though he says he supports the prosecutions for name suppression. He adds that contempt proceedings “remain an option” if Mr Oil’s offending continues or escalates, but would probably be brought after the suppression breaches trial.
A whale of a campaign
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010Sigh. I’ve been avoiding weighing in on Whale Oil’s campaign to reform NZ’s suppression laws, or failing that, render them useless. (In my absence, Andrew Geddis has done a good job). But it’s an issue that won’t die. It doesn’t help that the media seem endlessly fascinated by it, and by him.
I won’t attempt a […]
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 her arrest in […]
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 […]
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 that […]
Carter-Rucked
Monday, October 19th, 2009Heavy-hitting UK libel law firm Carter-Ruck has been getting some bad press lately. The Guardian reported that Carter-Ruck (famously referred to as “Carter-Fuck” by its nemesis Private Eye) had gagged it from reporting Parliamentary proceedings. What’s more, the gagged material related to a report concerning a toxic waste spill by giant oil company Trafigura. And […]
Breathless reporting?
Thursday, June 11th, 2009I was prepared to be outraged this morning.
What the hell? I thought. The Supreme Court overruled the High Court and the Court of Appeal and prevented telephone confession evidence from David Bain going to the jury? What were they thinking?
I’ve now read the judgment (note the bizarre url on Stuff’s website’s link to the judgment: http://multimedia.stuff.co.nz/rugby/images/Bainjudgement.pdf)!
If you’re […]