Feeling sorry for Vince?
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008Poor Vincent Siemer. Facing a limitless stretch in the slammer for … what? A couple of websites? Oath. I’m afraid I find it difficult to get too worked up about Vince’s plight. He’d like to pitch his troubles as a freedom of expression battle against a corrupt businessman (his nemesis, Michael Stiassny), and corrupt lawyers (including his own), and […]
Hello?
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008Is that the courts’ decisions of public interest department? [Note: I originally unfairly said that the Ministry of Justice ran this. But it’s the judges who run this website and decide what gets posted]. Don’t you think Justice Miller’s decision on abortion law might qualify? A media release explaining its essence might be helpful, too. Really, you’ve only got […]
No Sentence or Sensibility
Thursday, June 5th, 2008I’m not sure the implications of this extraordinary Dominion Post story have been explored quite enough: The practice of offering rewards in murder cases is under review after the defence in the Foreman trial used the proposed payout to undermine the Crown’s star witness. The Sensible Sentencing Trust was set to pay $50,000 to Donna Kingi […]
Judicial Smackdown II: The Empire Strikes Back
Saturday, May 31st, 2008Well, one judge does anyway. You’ll remember that Justice Fogarty controversially ruled that some of the the guidelines for cameras in court were illegal (I discussed the ruling here). Another High Court judge, Keane J, has disagreed. In R v Crutchley, he said that the guidelines are “entirely compatible with a trial judge’s duty to secure that justice is done.” […]
Review of Review of the Law of Privacy
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008Earlier this year, the Law Commission released its Review of the Law of Privacy. It’s well worth a read. It demonstrates what a nebulous and problematic concept privacy is. The review is part of a four-stage inquiry into the whole gamut of privacy laws, including the Privacy Act, public registers, the tort, and other privacy-related laws. […]
Regulating broadcasting content
Monday, May 26th, 2008You may know that the government is having a big think about what to do about the patchwork of increasingly moth-eaten laws and regimes that govern broadcasting content. It has produced discussion papers and invited feedback. The submissions are here. More on this soon.
The biggest mystery about the Kahui case…
Sunday, May 25th, 2008… is why so many journalists seem to have no idea of what an acquittal means. I’m getting pretty sick of statements like this one, from today’s Herald on Sunday: …the jury of seven men and five women were unanimous in their view that he was not the killer. No, they weren’t (or if they were, their […]
Flashbacks
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008A few of these posts might be familiar to those who have subscribed to the discussion group NZMLJ. From time to time, I’ll reproduce some posts of interest from the archives.
How the Clean Slate Act applies to the media
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008The Clean Slate Act effectively expunges people’s old, minor criminal offences. But does that mean the media can’t publish them? Reading the Act as a whole, it looks like it doesn’t. Yes, it’s an offence for a journalist to ask someone to disregard the Act, which allows people to lie about particular convictions if they […]
Who needs the BSA?
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008This might surprise you. I was looking at broadcast licences the other day. As you might guess, they can be subject to conditions, and most of the ones that are imposed relate to technical issues: making sure there’s no overlapping use of the spectrum, for example. Mostly, they’re nothing to do with the content of […]
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