Corrections ban on Truth surely unlawful
Thursday, June 30th, 2011The Department of Corrections’ decision to ban the Truth from Auckland prison looks unlawful. And typical. The prison says the ban is based on the content of the paper’s coverage, not on the girly ads. It’s possible (but I would have thought very unlikely) that the ads might fall under the department’s ability to confiscate “objectionable” […]
Free speech vs privacy
Sunday, June 12th, 2011A New Mexico man puts up a billboard of himself holding the outline of a baby, saying: This Would Have Been a Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To NOT KILL Our Child! His ex-partner (who says she had a miscarriage not an abortion) sues for harrassment and invasion of […]
Sauce for the goose
Friday, June 10th, 2011Has anyone else twigged to the irony that the UK media have fought, tooth and nail, against Max Mosley’s attempt to force them to give advance notice to people whose privacy they plan to invade (which would give those people a chance to seek an injunction before the damage was done by publication)… at the […]
Darren Hughes’ accuser: will he be named?
Thursday, June 9th, 2011Now that the police have decided not to press charges against Darren Hughes, the obvious next question is whether his accuser can be named. For now, the answer is no. There is still an injunction in place. Someone will have to apply to court to have it lifted. Will the judge be sympathetic? I suspect […]
Hung: drawn and quartered
Monday, May 23rd, 2011The BSA’s decision on the Hung programme has been put to death by the High Court. (You might have thought this would be a judicial decision of public interest for the Courts of NZ website. Apparently not.) My article with Claudia Geiringer about the BSA and the Bill of Rights is cited again, perhaps not […]
Sign of the times
Monday, May 23rd, 2011Wouldn’t it be just like some smart-arse protester to sneak in at night and change the WELLYWOOD sign to something like SMELLYWORD? Not that I’m advocating that, you understand. It would be against the law.
Unbelievable
Saturday, May 21st, 2011Some readers have wondered whether I’m exaggerating when I accuse the British press of being incapable of reporting fairly about so-called super-injunctions. Here I offer Exhibit A: today’s Guardian story about a long-awaited and fascinating report by a committee headed by the Master of the Rolls on the issue of injunctions, super-injunctions and anonymity orders. The […]
Which one is not like the others?
Monday, May 16th, 2011Famous victims of the justice system: Lindy Chamberlain, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the Guildford Four … and David Bain? Bain and Joe Karam are lined up to speak with these others at an international conference on justice in Perth next March. Barry Scheck from the Innocence Project will also be speaking.
Who slew? Who knew?
Friday, May 13th, 2011Let me go on record as saying I think Jon Stephenson’s allegations about NZ involvement in abuses in Afghanistan demand a proper independent investigation. Wayne Mapp seems to have admitted many of them, but somehow the government still seems to be saying “Move along – nothing to see here”. At the same time the PM […]
Why we should protect flag-burners
Thursday, May 12th, 2011This piece is in today’s DomPost, but they don’t seem to have put it up online: I’m astonished by the reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Valerie Morse’s flag-burning conviction. “Anyone can burn our flag”, thunders the front page of the Dom Post, disapprovingly. It’ll make the police’s job harder, intones Radio NZ news. […]
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