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Feeling sorry for Vince?
By Steven | June 17, 2008
Poor Vincent Siemer. Facing a limitless stretch in the slammer for … what? A couple of websites? Oath.
I’m afraid I find it difficult to get too worked up about Vince’s plight. He’d like to pitch his troubles as a freedom of expression battle against a corrupt businessman (his nemesis, Michael Stiassny), and corrupt lawyers (including his own), and corrupt judges (pretty much anyone who’s ruled against him, in a couple of dozen court hearings). But what it’s really about is his ongoing and flagrant refusal to comply with court orders.
He’s already been held in contempt in two cases (the second upheld by the Court of Appeal). He had been injuncted from publishing particular material about Stiassny, and had continued to do so. His websites are here and here, and it seems here, and he’s got a book out that you can buy here. I’ve ordered my copy, before it gets banned. Will it breach the court order not to:
Publish in any form any information containing allegations of criminal or unethical conduct or as to improper personal enrichment on the part of the plaintiffs in relation to their conduct of the receivership of Paragon Oil Systems Ltd; any claim that the plaintiffs deliberately overcharged Paragon Oil Systems Ltd in the sum of $10,000; together with information as to the fact of complaints made by Mr Siemer and/or Paragon Oil Systems Ltd to ICANZ or to the Serious Fraud Office; and including any information obtained by Mr Siemer or Paragon Oil Systems Ltd in the course of discovery in any proceedings pending further order of the Court…
This injunction is fairly narrowly tailored. The original injunction – by Winkelmann J – prevented Siemer from publishing anything at all on his website relating to Stiassny. That’s really too broad to ever be justified. It was narrowed by Ellen France J about a month later. Note that the injunction is an interim one. It’s in place pending the final determination of the defamation case. If Siemer can prove that his allegations are true, he will be able to reinstate the banned content. The courts generally do not grant this sort of injunction in defamation cases. They only did so here because two High Court judges were convinced that there was no basis for Siemer’s allegations:
Justice France: Having assessed the evidence, I conclude this is one of those exceptional cases where the Court can say that there is no reasonable possibility of a defence of truth succeeding in relation to any allegations of criminal or unethical conduct or as to improper personal enrichment.
[UPDATE: I’d missed this point, but the Court of Appeal preferred to base the injunction on an agreement struck between Siemer and Stiassny not to publicly diss each other, rather than on defamation.]
Siemer continued to publish such allegations. He was fined after the first contempt and sentenced to 6 weeks in jail after the second one.
He objects that he was tried “in absentia” – he was overseas at the time of the second trial. Which might be outrageous, except for the fact that he’d known about the hearing date, hadn’t filed any documents, hadn’t engaged legal counsel, and had simply emailed the court to say he wouldn’t be making it. They said he needed to formally apply for a different date. He didn’t.
It should probably also be noted that the evidence against him at this hearing included an email confession:
Gentlemen, Now that the Court of Appeal has ignored the evidence that your injunction was improperly obtained, I hope you don’t mind that I ignore the injunction.
His websites still contain some of the same content identified by the court as being in contempt. Six weeks in jail didn’t work. What’s a Solicitor-General to do? Putting him in jail until he agrees to comply with the court order is an end-of-tether penalty. But it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
Topics: Contempt of Court, Defamation, Injunctions, Internet issues | Comments Off on Feeling sorry for Vince?