Law Commission on contempt
Friday, May 23rd, 2014The Law Commission has released its discussion paper on contempt of court. It covers changes to the sub judice rule (under which you can be punished for publishing something that interferes with fair trial rights), scandalising the judicary (under which you can be punished for suggesting judges are biased or corrupt), contempt in the face […]
Taurima Report
Wednesday, May 14th, 2014As many of you know, I was on the panel for the TVNZ inquiry into Labour Party activities at TVNZ by Shane Taurima and other TVNZ staff members. Other panel members were TVNZ’s Head of Corporate and Legal Affairs Brent McAnulty and CEO of the Radio Broadcasters Association Bill Francis, and we were ably assisted […]
Press Council to tackle bloggers
Wednesday, May 14th, 2014This is my column for the first edition of the NewLaw magazine. The Press Council wants to spread its wings. It has decided to fly farther afield, casting its eagle eye over new terrains on the internet, including bloggers. Will the online community welcome the attentions of this defender of speech and guardian of journalistic […]
The news according to Mike Hosking
Thursday, April 3rd, 2014I was watching Seven Sharp on Tuesday, and caught Mike Hosking’s closing monologue: Bad news. I’m afraid the IPCC – the International Panel on Climate Change – has issued its latest report. It’s 2,600 pages long and spans 32 volumes. But I can sum it up for you. Ah, we’re stuffed. The seas are rising, […]
Post at your own risk!
Thursday, February 13th, 2014An interesting warning from the Northern Ireland High Court: Before I go on … I should say that anyone who uses Facebook does so at his or her peril. There is no guarantee that any comments posted to be viewed by friends will only be seen by those friends. Furthermore it is difficult to see […]
Harmful Digital Communications Bill submission
Tuesday, February 11th, 2014Introduction I am a barrister specialising in media law and a lecturer in media and privacy law at Victoria University of Wellington’s law school. I am also a blogger and occasional journalist. I am the author of a textbook for journalists called “Media Minefield”. I have dealt with, studied, and commented on many cases involving […]
Constitution, reviewed
Thursday, December 5th, 2013To all those people who insistend that the government’s constitutional consideration was a stalking horse for formally entrenching the Treaty of Waitangi and racial bias into our constitution: time to start wiping the egg off your face. I’m looking at you, Chris Trotter and Winston Peters and John Ansell and the folk at the Independent Constitutional Review. […]
Is Whale Oil a journalist?
Sunday, December 1st, 2013More specifically, is Cameron Slater entitled to the same privilege to protect sources that other journalists have? As the NZ Herald reports, the owner/operator/author of NZ’s most widely read blog is being sued for defamation. The plaintiff has formally asked him whether he knows the name of his source. (You might have thought that the […]
Privacy scholarship
Friday, November 1st, 2013My colleague at VUW’s law school, Dr Nicole Moreham, asked me to post this: A scholarship is available for a student wishing to complete an LLM by thesis on the law of privacy at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. The thesis will be supervised by Dr Nicole Moreham (co-editor of Tugenhat & Christie: […]
Can Len Brown sue for invasion of privacy?
Thursday, October 17th, 2013It’s always a bit dangerous to speculate on the legal significance of facts when a story is still emerging and not all those facts have come out. And the tort of invasion of privacy is still itself emerging from the misty depths of New Zealand’s common law, so its outline is not entirely clear either. […]
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