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An unprivileged position?
By Steven | September 15, 2010
The DomPost seems to have deliberately breached a name suppression order. And now I probably have too, having merely linked to it. What the hey. The paper is reporting that ACT MP David Garrett has admitted that he obtained a false passport in his halcyon days, using the time-honoured Day-of-the-Jackel method of finding the tombstone of a dead baby who was born roughly when you were and applying for a passport in its name.
I have to say, I think that’s kind of cool. But illegal. Fair Go has done it too, and with better motivation: to prove how easily it could be done. Also illegal.
Anyway, David Garrett was found out much later, pleaded guilty and was discharged without conviction and given name suppression. (Question: what is ACT’s position on criminals who receive this treatment?)
Garrett says he’s currently trying to have the name suppression withdrawn. Apparently that hasn’t happened yet. But the DomPost has still named him. Also… illegal. You’d think it might have picked up on that, having covered the Whale Oil case so assiduously.
Ah, they’ll be saying. But Garrett said it on the floor of the House of Parliament. We were just reporting that. It’s privileged. Isn’t it?
I don’t think so. Privilege applies to Garrett. (Though technially he could be answerable to the Privileges Committee for using his Parliamentary rights to breach a suppression order, I don’t think anyone’s going to get too exercised about him fessing up to his own crime). Privilege also exempts the media from defamation actions when reporting what’s said in the House. Lord Denning – but only Lord Denning – has suggested that privilege may also insulate media Parliamentary reports from contempt actions. But not name suppression laws.
I don’t think anything will come of this. I’m not saying anything should. When Winston Peters revealed the identify of a child in a family court battle, for instance, no-one batted an eyelid when that was reported. Let me heroically opine that I should not be prosecuted either.
But Whale Oil occasionally rails about the way that the media often gets away with flouting suppression laws, while he gets prosecuted. Well, they’re not thumbing their nose at the law the way he does, but let’s grant that he has a point.
Topics: Name suppression, Parliamentary privilege | Comments Off on An unprivileged position?