Category: Suppression

A win for media companies and the internet. NSW Court of Criminal Appeal acknowledges the practical impossibility of policing online publications and re-affirms the role of sub judice contempt in preventing prejudice to proceedings ... more

Open justice gets an airing in WA as the Court of Appeal upholds an appeal by The Sunday Times over the suppression of names and details in a medical misconduct case … State Administrative Tribunal exceeded its power ... more

Initial reservations dismissed as the UK Supreme Court unanimously agrees that the media can identify people suspected of facilitating terrorism. A “powerful general public interest” outweighs all others ... more

WA Court of Appeal says the interests of justice would not have been served by naming a male prosecution witness in a gay murder trial. The West Australian is denied leave to appeal ... more

The WA Court of Appeal has refused The West Australian and Channel Seven leave to appeal an order prohibiting the publication of a videotape showing children being abused at a Perth childcare centre ... more

NSW government strengthens and clarifies prohibitions on the naming of children involved in criminal proceedings. The courts will now have greater discretion, but not everyone is happy ... more

NSW Supreme Court Justice Cliff Einstein refuses to suppress details of sacked Wallaby Loti Tuqiri’s action against the Australian Rugby Union, despite the best efforts of Tuqiri’s lawyer – Mark O’Brien – who (this time) wasn’t appearing for his other client, Fairfax Media ... more

Australia’s Right To Know, a coalition of 12 media organisations, releases its findings after a five month national review of suppression orders – and they’re not pretty. It found most courts don’t keep records of orders and most orders are unnecessary. Media access to court documents is “difficult, if not impossible in some jurisdictions” ... more

The Western Australian Court of Appeal finds that media access to police interviews is a matter for the Corruption & Crime Commission’s discretion. WA Newspapers wins appeal over an interview with Simon Rochford, now deceased, played during the Mallard Inquiry ... more

As the rise and rise of the suppression order threatens to erode open justice, Australia’s Right To Know, a coalition of 12 media organisations, has commissioned a national review. Prue Innes, the review’s research director, reports ... more

Media groups and the Australian Press Council put their case to a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the naming of children in criminal proceedings. Amendments to the Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act 1987 have induced “incredulity in newsrooms”, says Fairfax’s lawyer Richard Coleman ... more

Victorian Supreme Court Justice Betty King stops Nine’s real-life gangland series Underbelly from going to air in Victoria tonight and takes a swipe at Channel Nine’s profit motive. GLJ has the full transcript of yesterday’s hearing and the judge’s ruling ... more