Public meeting on Urerewa raids
Monday, September 22nd, 2008I’m speaking at a public meeting tonight on the contempt of court aspects of the Urewera raids. The meeting is organised by supporters of the defendants, and will also include a discussion of the broader issues around the raids, and the Search and Surveillance Powers Bill. I’m not a member of the October 15th solidarity […]
Fairfax contempt case: some impressions
Friday, September 19th, 2008I caught some parts of the evidence, but not the submissions, so I’m a bit limited in what I can add to my original thoughts here. But that’s also the case with the media coverage generally. While the press bench was full to overflowing, the journalists might just as well have been reporting on a […]
Judge Harvey lifts internet suppression order
Friday, September 19th, 2008It seems the media’s submissions on Friday were successful. Haven’t seen the decision yet.
Just wondering…
Thursday, September 4th, 2008Did Judge Perkins consider the NZ Bill of Rights Act before issuing a blanket suppression order in the Arms Act charges relating to the police raids last year? These sorts of discretions must be exercised consistently with the BORA – so the restrictions should be demonstrably justified in terms of the tests laid down by the […]
How to shut down speech on the internet. Maybe.
Thursday, September 4th, 2008Sebastian Hoegl, a masters student from Germany in my media law seminar, made a startling suggestion this week. Since we all access the internet via an ISP (we put in a web address, the ISP hives off, collects the data, and sends it to our computers), then the ISPs are publishing that material to us. […]
Talk about giving with one hand…
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008On the same day the Hawke’s Bay Today was writing to Peter Hausmann to offer to correct its editorial of five days earlier for inaccurately founded attacks, guess what it printed in its paper? The same inaccurately founded attacks. Nice. The Press Council has found this “inexplicable“, and it doesn’t seem that the paper even […]
Where’s the media?
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008According to this report, Judge Harvey seems bemused that the media haven’t turned up to make submissions about his order allowing only non-online reporting of details about the Hapata case. “Not even an RSVP?” he’s reported to have asked.
The value of the press
Monday, September 1st, 2008From Winston Peters’ blog: Today we have been doing some jobs at home, pausing occaisionally [sic] to look out the window at the teams of journalists, camera people and photographers camping on the footpath. At the same time, it occurred to me that the money spent on these people could be used on a force […]
Defamation liability for threads on blogs and news websites
Sunday, August 31st, 2008Remember the basic rule of defamation: you publish it, you’re liable for it. That includes everyone involved in the publication. In a newspaper: the quoted source, the reporter, the subeditor, the editor, the publisher, the printer, the paperboy, and the bookshop. (The last three probably have a defence of innocent dissemination, as long as they’ve […]
Harvey’s online gag
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008Sounds like a prank website, doesn’t it? Of course, I mean Judge Harvey’s recent order that non-internet media can report on the proceedings against the accused killers of John Hapeta. Still, some people have been wondering: is this a joke? Isn’t trying to put a lid on the internet rather like trying to bottle a […]
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