Changes announced today welcomed by Media Freedom Committee

Changes announced today to tighten criteria for the granting of name suppression have been provisionally welcomed by the national Media Freedom Committee.

Committee chairman Tim Murphy says setting out in law the reasons why a judge can grant suppression is a positive step.

"For too long, judges, justices of the peace and community magistrates have taken the broadest possible view on whether someone appearing before them should qualify for suppression. For too long the public right to know what is occurring in our courts has been set aside by lower courts too busy or too ill-equipped to care about that important principle.

"For too long, some types of defendant have received the protection of name suppression after spurious claims of harm to themselves, their careers or to ailing elderly relatives, should their names be known publicly."

The Media Freedom Committee, representing the country's major newspapers, television and radio networks and magazines, says the reform announced by Justice Minister Simon Power appears to narrow the scope for suppression. The committee looks forward to seeing the detail of the proposed law changes and to taking part in the select committee consultation process.

However the lack of action in establishing a national suppressions register was a disappointment. The Media Freedom Committee, and the Law Commission in its report on suppression, argue for an electronic register, updated in real time and available to newsrooms by password only, to record all non-publication orders made in the country's courts.

"At the moment no one in the criminal justice system, whether they be police, Crown lawyers, court officials, media or defendants can tell what is suppressed and what is not across the court system at any one point in time," Mr Murphy said. "The technology is available to achieve a live register, like parts of Australia, to eliminate mistakes or omissions from those covering the courts."

Another change in the government's reform, to suppress automatically the names of child victims of crime, will need careful thought, in the committee's view. "This could create a whole class of victim whose story can never be told to the public. On the face of it, a teenager whose life may be ruined by a crash caused by a drunk driver, would never be known to the public. And while government officials believe the names of deceased children such as Nia Glassie or Augustine Borrell, the teenager fatally knifed on an Auckland street, would not be suppressed, they have not yet ruled that out."

"The lessons for society from their experiences would be much diminished by the very anonymity of the victim."

ENDS

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