The Palmerston North name suppression decision
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010Is here.
Chasing Ali
Monday, February 15th, 2010The latest development in the Alison Mau saga reads like a media law exam question. On Breakfast TV she took a swipe at Woman’s Day, saying its “paparazzi photographer has been stalking me, my children and my friends for a month now, quite possibly more, following me to the supermarket, the kids’ tennis and touch […]
What can Crown lawyers say to the media?
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010The Crown Law Office has put out a very sensible, but rather general, protocol containing guidance for prosecutors when dealing with media inquiries. It doesn’t mention civil proceedings, but it does apply to the Crown Law Office itself, and the general principles at the beginning seem broad enough to cover civil cases too. It makes […]
Another interesting thing about the Terry case
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010Look at the standard the judge applies to the injunction: the rule in Bonnard v Perryman. This is a famous case that sets the bar very high in defamation cases. Bonnard holds that no pre-trial injunction will be granted in a defamation case unless it’s entirely clear that no defence might apply. In practice, this […]
Super-Injunction denied
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010A fascinating insight into super-injunctions English football captain John Terry’s failed attempt to obtain an injunction gagging revelation of his affair with his team-mate’s ex contains a lot of fascinating information about so-called super-injunctions. A super-injunction is a gag that not only prevents particular information from being published, it also stops anyone even mentioning the […]
Name revelation
Friday, January 22nd, 2010I see that Whale Oil has been publishing a series of posts under the heading “Interesting names” that contain nothing but a person’s name. I might take a wild stab in the dark and guess that those were names that had been suppressed. Is he breaking the law? It’s an offence to publish a name […]
Crashing and burning
Thursday, January 21st, 2010Valerie Morse has lost her appeal to the Court of Appeal over her conviction for flag-burning at the Anzac Day Dawn Service. (For some reason, this wasn’t regarded as a “decision of public interest”, but it’s posted here). The judges all wrote separate judgments. Justice Arnold and the President of the Court of Appeal, William […]
Meanwhile, over at Whale HQ
Thursday, January 14th, 2010Mr Oil has an odd post calling attention to the discrepancy between the “liberal crim huggers” (does that include the people who support him, one wonders?) who point out that many name suppressions exist to protect victims, including one of the ones he’s alleged to have breached, and this case: An Auckland methodist minister has […]
Solicitor-General not going Whale hunting
Thursday, January 14th, 2010The Solicitor-General has decided not to pursue Mr Oil for contempt of court “at this stage”, though he says he supports the prosecutions for name suppression. He adds that contempt proceedings “remain an option” if Mr Oil’s offending continues or escalates, but would probably be brought after the suppression breaches trial.
Simunovich case settled
Thursday, January 14th, 2010The long-running high-stakes defamation battle over the media’s allegations about corruption in the fishing industry has been settled, at least with respect to some of the plaintiffs, with a payment of damages and an apology. Vince Siemer puts the settlement figure at $15 million. Stuff reports TVNZ says it’s about $1.5 million, which strikes me […]
« Previous Entries Next Entries »