David Collins

The NZ Herald weighs in on the debate over name suppression. This is a very good summation of the pros and cons of our current suppression system and dispels some myths about name suppression.

The canvas these arguments (my view is in brackets) :

• Every accused person should get name suppression until convicted. (No)
• The accused should get name suppression in sex cases where the victim is related in order to protect the victim’s identity. (No, we should implement the Capill Solution where the victim and the nature of the relationship are suppressed but not the accused)
• Suppression orders penalise print media (Yes)
• Prominent people should have a greater right to name suppression (No WAY)
• The internet makes suppression orders impotent (Yes)

They make only one silly statement:

As demonstrated by the fact that Slater has been charged for alleged breaches of court orders. internet posters can be traced and prosecuted, as can old media.

Uhhhhmmm…it wasn’t like I was hiding.

Whether or not the internet played a role by increasing the pool of those in the know, a curious John Key learned the name of the entertainer (found to have committed a sex offence, discharged without conviction, granted permanent name suppression) by asking someone he knew.

The Prime Minister believes the ease with which he learned the name shows suppression orders are not working.

The penalty of $1000 is hardly a deterrent to breaching an order, something that is acknowledged by the Law Commission which recommends it be greatly increased.

This is one of my concerns with the Law Commission proposals. They don’t address the issues that the public is talking about, that of transparency of the court system, something suppression clearly breaches. Rather than solve the problem by matching our laws with like jurisdictions their answer is once over lightly re-write and and increase in fines. We need more open-ness and more transparency not more hiding.

They mention the Solicitor-General, David Collins pursuing prosecution for contempt of court and breaching name suppression. David Collins has been blabbing on about this extensively for some time and claims three scalps so far and in private and in public has stated that he is going to make an example of a blogger this year.

I wonder perhaps if David Collins’ crusade isn’t a bit of Pot, Kettle, Black.

The Solicitor-General has blinked.

After a bully-boy cop in nelson and Chris Comesky mouthed off about jamming me in the slammer for something I never did we have ended up at the only result that was ever going to happen. A decision not to charge me with Contempt of Court.

The Police allegedly launched an investigation into charging me with contempt of court, I say allegedly because I was never interviewed, never spoken to, or even emailed about it. I didn’t hear about this until the NZPA release came out.

The Solicitor-General’s office said he did not “at this stage” intend to bring contempt proceedings against Slater.

However, he had asked the police to consider prosecuting the blogger under the Criminal Justice Act.

David Collins, the Solicitor-General, has long talked tough on taking down a blogger, today he blinked. The best they think they can do is charge me with the same thing they have already charged me with. That charge will be tossed out faster than you can blink because no-one, least of all David Collins, the lefty blogs and the media have realised that I did not break the law on the ex-MP case.

140 – Court may prohibit publication of names
Except as otherwise expressly provided in any enactment, a court may make an order prohibiting the publication, in any report or account relating to any proceedings in respect of an offence, of the name, address, or occupation of the person accused or convicted of the offence, or of any other person connected with the proceedings, or any particulars likely to lead to any such person’s identification.

I didn’t do that. At all. If I was to be charged with contempt for that post then Google, Wikipedia and a certain political that still has pages with his name on them as well as cached pages in the Google page would have to be charged too…oh and any government agency that sent him a letter, NZ Post for distributing it etc, etc. Still I expect I’ll see Tweedledum and Tweedledumber sometime tomorrow to issue me with a summons for the next charge.

I still wonder why the NZ Herald and the other MSM have not been charged because it was then that revealed the details of the accused the moment they linked my post to their reports or accounts relating to the proceedings in respect of an offence. It was them that did that not me. The entire MSM. I look forward to see them getting charged. I won’t hold my breath.

Meanwhile the cop shooter still has name suppression. It beggars belief. We all know the victim, poor Constable Snow, yet we still are not allowed to know the name of someone who would try to kill a cop. At the same time the Police would chase down any blogger who leaked those details in a heart beat, riddle me that.

Stay tuned for a big announcement Tuesday at 7:10am concerning this issue.