Without prejudice?
Friday, January 21st, 2011Isn’t much of the coverage of the Auckland child abuse case based on the premise that crimes have been committed, and implicitly, that they were by the parents (and another family member)? That includes some of the statements from the government, as where Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is reported as saying that it was […]
ECHR upholds Campbell, criticises success fees
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011The European Court of Human rights has endorsed the House of Lords majority finding in the Naomi Campbell case that her privacy was breached by the publication of photographs of her outside a Narcotics Anonymous meeting – and that this was not a disproportionate interference with the paper’s freedom of expression. (There’s lots of language […]
Memo to HOS: When a man is accused of dismembering his former partner, don’t pap their 5-year-old kid
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010Yes, even if he may be an important witness. Especially if he may be an important witness. Even if he’s in a public place. Even if a different picture of the boy and his mum was supplied by the police. (Memo to the police: What the hell were you thinking?) Also, don’t try to justify this […]
Press Council agrees with me
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010You might remember that I lambasted the Sunday Star-Times for its misleading front-page headline “Sex attack gets drunk driver off”. The story was about a woman convicted of drunk driving who hadn’t even appealed that conviction, only her sentence. Well, Andrew Geddis was equally incensed, and complained to the Press Council. It upheld the complaint.
BSA cracks down?
Monday, December 20th, 2010Is the Broadcasting Standards Authority, with its new personnel, getting tougher on taste and decency issues on TV? Earlier this year, it upheld complaints against TV3 for a somewhat raunchy scene in Home & Away at 5:30pm , and TVNZ for a somewhat raunchier scene in Hung at 10:10pm. Now it’s upheld two more complaints against TV3, […]
Another media name suppression beat up
Saturday, December 18th, 2010This article, headed “Porn accused gets name suppression” is in fact about a defendant who was denied permanent name suppression. An interim suppression order is due to lapse, but has been continued pending the defendant’s decision to appeal against the denial of permanent name suppression. (It’s obvious that this has to happen, otherwise the appeal […]
Pike River privacy IV
Friday, December 17th, 2010You may have seen the debate between Dr Nicole Moreham and I about the possibility of a privacy lawsuit against the media for showing pictures of grieving Pike River coal mine relatives leaving the meeting where they were told that the miners had certainly died. Here’s a recent BSA case that sheds some light. It […]
Primer on the New Zealand Constitution
Monday, December 13th, 2010Here’s a “Simpleton’s guide to the Constitution” that I wrote for the The Press a few years ago. It seems timely to stick it up again given the government’s new Constitutional review (aka the “Consideration of Constitutional Issues”). At the law school where I work, you’ll sometimes find foreign students wandering around the law library looking baffled. “Where is your […]
Toothless Bill of Rights?
Monday, December 13th, 2010I think NZ Herald’s John Armstrong is on the money when he lambasts John Key for not fronting up and justifying the decision to hold hearings into the NZ SIS Amendment Bill in private, and for wondering whether there is any real justification. But his parting shot at the “privacy supposedly protected by New Zealand’s […]
Wikileaks: the big question
Sunday, December 12th, 2010In all of the controversy about Wikileaks, one central question seems to remain unresolved: how should we pronounce “Assange”? Is it “an” as in “dance” or “blancmange” or “flange”? [Update: these sites suggest that the first is correct]. The main lesson of the Wikileaks saga for me is that we should be skeptical of government assertions that the […]
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