The law is bizarre: Judge Harvey says news websites can’t name murder accused
… but print media, TV and radio can. Apparently, Harvey fears the “Googling” the name of “someone” - presumably one of the accused - and accessing it later.
I’m guessing that fairly soon now, blogs all over .nz and elsewhere will name the two men facing charges of murdering 14-year-old John Hapeta, as they’re not “news websites” as such. Or are they?
While I can understand some of Judge Harvey’s concerns, banning online news sites from naming the two accused is rather pointless. Unless of course Harvey seeks to make a Canutean point about the limitations of judicial power in the online age.
August 25th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
indeed I have already seen the names. But be aware that NZ law is pretty unfavorable to media -including bloggers, even based overseas - for this sort of thing.
This sort of ruling is also contrary to the way online media is going where anything - and more- that is in print is also online.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
I left NZ some time ago now… and I rarely read NZ news these days, but international news that has New Zealand … catches my attention.
So I found articles about the online publishing ban… and then I googled and within 30 seconds I found the names of the accused.
Given how little effort this took, and how soon it was after the news of this broke, I’m left wondering what the judge was trying to achieve?