Open up Parliament too!
June 11, 2010
The latest Ministers’ expense relevations once again demonstrate the value of transparency and the shakiness of the assurances that “systems are in place to ensure propriety”. Good on National for increasing the level of transparency. But since they’re so hot on it, why not bring Parliament under the Official Information Act too (and the Attorney-General as well), so that we can look at MPs’ expenses as well, including the use of Parliamentary income streams for electioneering purposes.
Topics: Official Information Act | Comments Off on Open up Parliament too!
UK defamation reform bill on the way
May 27, 2010
Lib-Dem peer, Reynolds lawyer and free speech thinker Lord Antony Lester has drawn up a Defamation Bill to try to even the balance between speech and reputation in the UK. Details are sketchy at the moment, but the proposals seem to include a requirement that plaintiffs prove some sort of “real harm” and corporate plaintiffs to prove loss; a simplified public interest defence; and changing the usual mode of trial to judge-alone.
Inforrm discussion here.
Topics: Defamation | Comments Off on UK defamation reform bill on the way
Morse wins right to appeal flag-burning conviction
May 18, 2010
Yay! Tony Shaw, Felix Geiringer and I have been granted leave by Supreme Court to argue that Valerie Morse should not have been convicted of offensive behaviour for burning a flag at an Anzac Day ceremony. Along the way, hopefully we’ll be able to sort out how the Bill of Rights applies to open-textured criminal offences like this one, and particularly when they’re applied to protesters.
Topics: NZ Bill of Rights Act, Protest speech | Comments Off on Morse wins right to appeal flag-burning conviction
Siemer wins reduction in sentence for contempt
May 18, 2010
Vince Siemer has reshaped the law of contempt in New Zealand. The Supreme Court has ruled 3-2 that the Bill of Rights right to a jury trial applies to those charged with contempt, since they face potential jail terms of more than 3 months. But since it’s unfeasible to give all contempt respondents jury trials, the maximum penalty for contempt of court is now 3 months. That’s on a par with seeking donations by false pretence or disorderly assembly.
So Vince is still off to jail, but for three months, not six.
Topics: Contempt of Court, General, NZ Bill of Rights Act | Comments Off on Siemer wins reduction in sentence for contempt
Price wins chocolate fish
May 18, 2010
In a recent speech Law Commission President Sir Geoffrey Palmer laid down a challenge: define “privacy”. He promised a chocolate fish for the best entry. His view is that privacy defies definition. I proved him wrong. This is the correct definition of privacy:
Privacy is what people believe they have lost when they complain about their privacy being infringed.
I am delighted to announce that I won the competition. Now that I have consumed the prize, I can safely confess that I thought this entry was better:
I have a definition of “Privacy” for you, unfortunately because of privacy laws I am unable to divulge it to you.
As you’ll see, many entrants made the mistake of making a serious attempt to define privacy, and most of them submitted definitions revolving around control of personal information. What this misses is privacy invasions that consist of invading private spaces or paying unwanted attention. On a serious level, I think my colleague Dr Nicole Moreham has come up with a pretty robust and workable definition of privacy as a state of desired inaccessibility. But happily for me, she didn’t enter.
Topics: Privacy tort | Comments Off on Price wins chocolate fish
Jones wins defamation damages of $104,000
May 18, 2010
Bob Jones won $104,000 in his defamation case against Chris Lee. I don’t know much about the case, but on this report it illustrates some good lessons: an apology in time can avert an expensive and risky court battle; both sides’ costs probably exceeded the damages award (though such actions are cheap compared with costs in the UK); and it doesn’t pay to take on Bob Jones, as Hugh Templeton also famously discovered.
Topics: Defamation | Comments Off on Jones wins defamation damages of $104,000
Hate speech
May 10, 2010
In recent issues of the Listener, Deborah Hill Cone has been upping the frequency of her snarky swipes at the left. Last week, she highlighted the irony of liberals who preach tolerance but try to “shut down” Ann Coulter’s speech. She suggested that “[c]onservative speakers can’t visit campuses in the US now without bodyguards”. What, all of them?
Anyway, who are these liberals calling for her books to be burnt? Aren’t most liberals simply trying to point out that Coulter’s bile-filled screeds are riddled with errors and that she’s not worth listening to?
The week before, Deborah wrote:
The Spectator’s Hugo Rifkind took the words right out of my mouth about why he couldn’t be a leftie: “I could never be comfortable on the left, there’s too much hate there.”
Can she seriously believe this? The usual knock on liberals is that they are softies, tree-hugging, criminal-coddling, immigrant-loving, PC wetnurses. They care too much. Righteousness, that’s the liberal speciality, not hatred.
Sure, the left produce some nasty invective, but it’s not a patch – not a stitch on a patch – of the hatred spilled on the right. Where’s the left’s equivalent of WhaleOil? Or Michael Laws? Of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Powerline, Michael Savage?
Deborah should be taken out the back and shot.
Topics: General | Comments Off on Hate speech
Sir Geoffrey Palmer: the fourth branch of government
May 10, 2010
A sentence from the Herald on Sunday’s story about Louise Nicolas’s objections to Clint Rickards’ presence of the duty solicitor roster caught my eye:
A lawyer, who did not want to be named for fear of punishment from the Law Commission, said there were many people at the courthouse “who don’t want the guy in the building”.
I knew that the Law Commission under Sir Geoffrey had a far-reaching agenda, but I didn’t know it was that far-reaching.
Topics: General | Comments Off on Sir Geoffrey Palmer: the fourth branch of government
America: Fuck yeah!
May 6, 2010
The Onion reports on a US Supreme Court obscenity decision upholding First Amendment rights. Recommended, if only for the accompanying photograph.
Topics: General | Comments Off on America: Fuck yeah!
The right to receive information revived…
May 3, 2010
I have long thought that our official information laws ought to be affected by the NZ Bill of Rights Act’s guarantee of freedom of expression, which says:
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.
Surely, I thought, the right to receive information could include information about the workings of government. Yes, there will often be reasons for government to withhold information. The rights in the BORA can be limited if the restrictions are reasonable, prescribed by law, and demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. So most of the withholding grounds in the Official Information Act, for example, would probably pass muster. But there ought to be an argument that those grounds ought to be interpreted and applied consistently with the right to receive information in the BORA, and a convincing justification made out if information is to be denied. The same would go for applications for access to court material. And perhaps even to the Privacy Act.
But the balance of authority has been against this proposition. I debated this with Andrew Geddis and others in the comments section of this MLJ post. I cited NZ and European authority against this interpretation of the right to freedom of expression. (I could also have cited the Hutton inquiry).
But recent EHCR authority may indicate a change of approach – at least where the information requested can be regarded as significant for the media’s social watchdog role. As Dan Tench notes, this could have implications (in the UK, anyway) for access to court proceedings, government inquiries, government information – and even perhaps information held by large corporations that may be required in the public interest.
The UK Court of Appeal has gone some way to accepting this. Might it catch on here?
Topics: NZ Bill of Rights Act, Official Information Act | Comments Off on The right to receive information revived…
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