Tag: open justice

Polkinghorne: Did coverage go to the line?

The Polkinghorne murder trial has drawn a line for media coverage of our courts. It is a line that must not be crossed.

Beyond it lies the possibility of interference with fair trial rights, or a misrepresentation which affects the public’s confidence in our court system. Crossing that line could have led to a mistrial, an offence under the Contempt of Court Act, or a loss of public confidence in our court system.

I think some coverage went close to the line. It was not crossed because, had it done so, miscreant media would have been called to account by the judge.

You’ll note I use the term ‘coverage’ rather that ‘reportage’. That is because I believe some of it went beyond the normal standards of court reporting to embrace observations, interpretations, and opinions. Some went beyond the confines of  the court.

The trial of retired Remuera eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne over the death of his wife, Pauline Hanna, ended last week in his acquittal. It appeared from a note passed to the judge by the jury during their deliberations that there was reasonable doubt within their ranks over whether she had been killed or had taken her own life. That appears to have been reflected in the verdict that was returned a short time later.

I have no intention of revisiting the evidence or the verdict. ‘Reasonable doubt’ is a well-understood concept. As I told a Stuff reporter for a story that led The Press last week: “I think we have seen justice done’.

However, I also told the reporter that I’d read colourful and dramatic accounts of the case that drew on comments and descriptions from the authors of some coverage which weren’t evidence, and pushed at the boundaries of media coverage. And that was because the case was suffused with what I described as “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll”. Continue reading “Polkinghorne: Did coverage go to the line?” →

Trans-Tasman imbalance in court suppression orders

We all see the merit in Justice’s blindfold that speaks of all being equal under the law, but isn’t it high time we re-examined the gag on her mouth? The number of court suppression orders is inordinately high.

That assessment is based on a comparison of suppression data collected by the New Zealand Herald and by the Melbourne newspaper The Age.

Data assembled by the Herald’s data editor Chris Knox and revealed in Shayne Currie’s Media Insider column on Saturday shows that name suppressions have risen by 47 per cent in the past decade and last year stood at 1616 orders. That represents 2.5 per cent of all people charged, up from 1.3 per cent a decade ago.

The fact that suppression has risen almost by half since 2014 was worrying enough, but what made Knox’s figures all the more disturbing was a story I had read in The Age a couple of weeks ago. Continue reading “Trans-Tasman imbalance in court suppression orders” →

Name suppression: Wallace’s wallet hid the truth

The end of the long and tortuous road to revealing multi-millionaire James Wallace as a convicted sex offender will be a tipping point.  It will be the final straw in a growing stack of calls for reform of a system that allows the rich to use court processes to hide from the public.

Suppression of Wallace’s name was finally lifted last week after he exhausted his last avenue of appeal – the Supreme Court – and the public learned he was the “prominent businessman” now serving a prison sentence of two years and four months for sexual offences against three young men.

Three of New Zealand’s metropolitan newspapers led their front pages with the news that he could be named. ‘Knighted arts patron named as sex offender’ said the New Zealand Herald, while the Waikato Times baldly declared ‘Predator’s name revealed’, and The Press disclosed Wallace was the ‘Jailed businessman behind restoration’ of an inner-Christchurch mansion.

Wallace, who was first charged in February 2017, used every avenue of appeal against conviction, sentence, and name suppression. Had our judicial system still allowed appeals to the Privy Council in London, he would doubtless have sought that avenue as well. He could afford the legal costs: The ‘rich-lister’ is said to be worth $165 million.

And, of course, the Covid pandemic – when court activity was reduced to a minimum – further stretched his period of anonymity. Continue reading “Name suppression: Wallace’s wallet hid the truth” →

Super-injunctions make an unwelcome appearance

One could be excused for feeling utterly confused by a court story in the Weekend Herald the Saturday before last, but none of the blame lies with the publication or its reporter.

It was bewildering because it related to an attempt to apply a total ban on publication of any details of the case to which it related. And it extended to reporting that the injunction against publication had even been sought.

That, in my book, is called a super-injunction. That is also how the Herald described it.

A super-injunction is an interim injunction which not only restrains publication of information which concerns the applicant and is said to be confidential or private, but also stops publicising or informing others of the existence of the order and the proceedings. That is the ‘super’ element.

Such an injunction was sought after Herald senior journalist Kim Knight contacted “a New Zealand institution” in relation to a story she was pursuing. The Weekend Herald said the plaintiffs were “alleging it [the Herald] was about to publish potentially defamatory allegations” about an overseas individual.

The Herald did not reveal the name of that individual for two reasons: First because it was covered by the application for an injunction and, secondly, because the individual alleging potential defamation had not even been named in court documents made available to Herald publisher NZME. The paper says it does not know his name, calling him a “mystery man”. Continue reading “Super-injunctions make an unwelcome appearance” →