Archive for July, 2012
SC agrees to hear Siemer contempt appeal
Monday, July 30th, 2012Do judges have power to suppress the contents of whole judgments in criminal cases? If not, then perhaps Vince Siemer has a defence to the contempt ruling against him for posting a suppressed judgment in the Urewera case. The High Court and Court of Appeal said “yes” (discussions here and here). The Supreme Court has […]
Some sense at last
Saturday, July 28th, 2012Paul Chambers, the guy who was convicted of sending a menacing communication for a tweet about blowing up an airport after it was closed due to bad weather, has won his appeal. In fact it took two appeals before he got some judges who realised what everyone else knew from the get-go: this was joke. The […]
How to apply the Bill of Rights
Friday, July 27th, 2012The Broadcasting Standards Authority (in the wake of several High Court decisions, and perhaps aware of some of the criticisms I made with Claudia Geiringer) commissioned me to provide some advice on how the Bill of Rights applies to them and how they can practically integrate it into their decision-making. They have posted my paper […]
Uninsightful journalism
Monday, July 23rd, 2012Maybe I’m being overly nitpicky in objecting to this headline in a story on nzherald.co.nz: Harawira’s asset sale comments ‘insightful’ – BSA The Broadcasting Standards Authority was rejecting a complaint from Family First over a 3 News story that mentioned John Key’s assurance that asset sale share prices would be “affordable for a lot of […]
Scott Guy Verdict: Survey reveals journalists don’t have a clue
Thursday, July 12th, 2012According to a recent poll, 48% of us think it’s likely that Ewen Macdonald killed Scott Guy. Only 20% of us think it’s likely that he was not guilty. Apparently, the Dominion Post believes that this means that: …just 20 per cent of people surveyed agreed with Ewen Macdonald being acquitted of slaying Mr Guy […]