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Archive for January, 2010

Name revelation

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

I 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 […]

Crashing and burning

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Valerie Morse has lost her appeal to the Court of Appeal over her conviction for flag-burning at the Anzac Day Dawn Service. (For some reason, this wasn’t regarded as a “decision of public interest”, but it’s posted here). The judges all wrote separate judgments. Justice Arnold and the President of the Court of Appeal, William […]

Meanwhile, over at Whale HQ

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Mr Oil has an odd post calling attention to the discrepancy between the “liberal crim huggers” (does that include the people who support him, one wonders?) who point out that many name suppressions exist to protect victims, including one of the ones he’s alleged to have breached, and this case: An Auckland methodist minister has […]

Solicitor-General not going Whale hunting

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

The 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.

Simunovich case settled

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

The long-running high-stakes defamation battle over the media’s allegations about corruption in the fishing industry has been settled, at least with respect to some of the plaintiffs, with a payment of damages and an apology. Vince Siemer puts the settlement figure at $15 million. Stuff reports TVNZ says it’s about $1.5 million, which strikes me […]

A whale of a campaign

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Sigh. 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 […]