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Australian Gag Order Stokes Global Debate on Secrecy
- lysp 8y agoAustralian newspapers are actually getting a bit creative in relation to this case due to the profile of the person. On the day of the conviction, they released online articles about "suppression orders". ----- * https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/why-the-media-is-unable-to-report-on-a-case-that-has-generated-huge-interest-online-20181212-p50lta.html https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/why-the-media-is... * https://outline.com/jVdYJr https://outline.com/jVdYJr # Why the media is unable to report on a case that has generated huge interest online # > A very high-profile figure was convicted on Tuesday of a serious crime, but we are unable to report their identity due to a suppression order. > The person, whose case has attracted significant media attention, was convicted on the second attempt, after the jury in an earlier trial was unable to reach a verdict. They will be remanded when they return to court in February for sentencing. ----- The article then goes on about suppression orders and how Google Trends for the person's name increased on the day of the trial. So anyone who is internet-savvy would be able to figure out who it was.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- onetimemanytime 8y ago>>A very high-profile figure was convicted on Tuesday of a serious crime, but we are unable to report their identity due to a suppression order. Pell Online has the name, I think :) . So stupid these orders, trying to change the truth.
- enriquto 8y ago> So stupid these orders, trying to change the truth. These euphemisms are getting ridiculous. The person is cardinal George Pell, who has been convicted of sexual abuse (after an unanimous guilty verdict by the jury). He is the highest ranking member of the Catholic Church ever to be convicted as a sex offender.
- blm 8y agoThats funny. The Age makes it seem like the jury is remanded. Remand is for the alleged offender[1] [1] http://www.corrections.vic.gov.au/home/prison/remand/ http://www.corrections.vic.gov.au/home/prison/remand/
- my_first_acct 8y agoFrom the Hacker News guidelines [1]: "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." (IIRC, this particular guideline dates back to when Hacker News was called Startup News). The linked article, from the New York Times, elliptically discusses a topic that the New York Times itself cannot report on in its online edition, due to a gag order by an Australian judge. So it is not covered, and cannot be covered, by the modern-day equivalent of TV news. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- phs318u 8y agoAdmittedly, the guideline says "probably". In this case, I'd suggest that the global reach of online media and the fact (as you point out) that the New York Times, an American media company, is effectively banned (not really banned, but more "erring on the side of caution" I imagine) from reporting it, is of interest. As an Australian, I read an article stating that George Pell had been removed from the Pope's "council of nine (cardinals)", and then almost immediately after, read an article on the suppression order. A bit of quick searching, and I found out what the news was. Which begs the question, if the NYT (and presumably other international online media orgs) self-censored in the way described above, why would Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, not do the same? EDIT: I'm not suggesting that the search engines should self-censor (or that they shouldn't), I'm just wondering why they'd come to a different conclusion than, say, the NYT.
- mjevans 8y agoThey aren't publishing it, just indexing what others have published. The aggregation of information should never be censored; it is telling you where things are out there in the world. As a loosely related topic; the conveyance of truthful or believed to be truthful information should never be suppressed. However polity asking someone to be quiet for a time or for some other reason might be. This is why I believe 'state secrets' and secrets of all other types should only be for a specific limited time, and that all official records MUST receive re-classification on a regular interval (say once every 10 years, but a new review party who must also agree that it's worth keeping secret for another 10 years). Failure to review should result in publishing ~1 year after the expiration period.
- jp57 8y agoSo who is it?
- berbec 8y agoCardinal George Pell, 77, was convicted Tuesday on five counts of child sexual abuse in Melbourne. [1] 1: http://outline.com/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/an-australian-courts-gag-order-is-no-match-for-the-internet-as-word-gets-out-about-prominent-cardinals-conviction/2018/12/13/5137005c-fef5-11e8-83c0-b06139e540e5_story.html http://outline.com/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/...
- simonblack 8y agoPell is involved in two separate trials. Until the second trial is completed, the gag suppresses news on the verdict in the first trial. Without the gag, it's very unlikely that it would possible to obtain a conviction against Pell in the second trial. Once the second trial is over, both verdicts are able to be discussed and circulated as news.
- ShorsHammer 8y agoSomething I'm clueless about, but why aren't jurors allowed to know prior convictions? That seems like highly relevant information. If a person has robbed ten banks before why not tell the jury in the trial for the eleventh? Sure if a person had a multitude of driving convictions in a child abuse case I can understand the court denying it as irrelevant, but that isn't what's happening here.
- sho 8y agoTo flip your question around, should a prosecutor have the power to, upon an 11th bank robbery occurring, simply drag in the guy who did the last 10 and present him as "probably" the guilty party? This has happened any number of times in the past. It's important that each case stand on its own merits, to the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt". That said, judges have a lot of latitude to allow evidence of prior conviction if they feel it is in aid of a fair trial. They wield this power in order to keep all parties honest and unbiased as best they can. In this case - rightly or wrongly - the judge has decided that knowledge of the outcome of the first case would prejudice the second case, especially due to the emotional nature of the allegations. That's why the order was made. While I have nothing but contempt for Cardinal Pell, who represents pretty much everything I dislike about the church, he has as much right to a fair and unbiased trial as any other person. Months of media saturation might indeed prejudice that, so I reluctantly support the intent of this kind of power, appropriately limited and temporary. It certainly is more complicated in the age of global media, however, and I really don't know what the answer is, if there even is one.
- wallace_f 8y ago
- caf 8y agoThis week there have also been very similar issues raised around a gag order issued by a court in New Zealand, which is intended to keep the identity of a murder accused secret. The victim in this case was a British tourist, so the media in England has been reporting heavily on the case.
- Taniwha 8y agoTo make it worse Google auto-emailed a whole bunch of people breaking the gag order ....
- Benjamin_Dobell 8y agoYeah... look, with our Government passing far reaching anti-encryption laws (that impact the entire world) without the need for judicial oversight[1] and planning to move our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem after officially recognising the latter as the capital of Israel[2], and the general Australian population paying no bloody attention at all; gag orders are pretty low down on the list of stupid shit going on. It's getting down-right depressing to be an Australian citizen. [1] https://www.itnews.com.au/news/australias-encryption-bill-faces-17-changes-to-pass-parliament-516547 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/australias-encryption-bill-fa... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/14/australian-government-to-recognise-jerusalem-as-israels-capital https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/14/australian-gov...
- tzs 8y ago> planning to move our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem after officially recognising the latter as the capital of Israel Note that your source says that they are not moving the embassy until after a peace deal is reached.
- Benjamin_Dobell 8y agoScott Morrison said: > And we look forward to moving our embassy to West Jerusalem when practical, in support of, and after, final-status determination So he is indeed already planning to move the embassy, and chose to make this decision public.
- tzs 8y agoYou offered this as an example of Australian government stupidity. My point is that their planned move is to take place after the issues that make moving it stupid will no longer be applicable. Moving it before the status of Jerusalem is settled, like the US plans to, is stupid. Saying you'll move it, but only after the city's status is settled by a two state peace deal, does not seem to be stupid.
- pxi 8y agoHe is also a prominent climate change denier among his other crimes. Seems like some kind of generalised connection.
- harry8 8y agoWell done to everyone showing off by writing his name. You're enhancing the chances of a misstrial. But I bet you feel cool proving you know something while simultaneously showing off both your arrogance and ignorance. Good work mods too. Nice.
- peterkelly 8y agoI think by this point the genie is well out of the bottle.
- ternaryoperator 8y agoIt's been widely reported. [1] https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/cardinal-pell-found-guilty-sex-abuse-expected-appeal-reports-say https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/cardinal-pell-...
- fwn 8y agoIt's the mode of the trial that is flawed, if compromising it is this trivial.
- tomhoward 8y agoNot really. The point of the gag is to reduce the number of people who hear the news of his conviction, or who are influenced by full-blown emotionally charged commentary and public discussion about it. From what I can see the gag has been successful at ensuring it will be possible to find a group of competent jurors who haven't been tainted by the news or the commentary.
- fwn 8y agoI personally never lived in a country with jury trials for more than a few month, so it could very well be that I just don't get the culture behind it. Either you're assumed to be capable of judging a specific case despite media coverage or you shouldn't be judging anything at all. Because if something as trivial as reading news makes you incapable of forming an independent opinion, I really can't think of any environment that would allow you to form one. Again: maybe there's more behind this. Maybe some specific anglo-saxonian take on intellectual independence that requires censoring the news.
- baybal2 8y agoJust yet another reason for common law countries to adopt constitutions that are explicitly not open to interpretation You can see how easy even a body without executive power per se can mop the floor with weakly defined common law freedom of speech statues
- cyphar 8y agoAustralia does need constitutional human rights protections (currently we are in violation of a few international agreements, since we don't even have statutory protections). But having a constitution that is not open to interpretation would be unprecedented and would be an awful decision. Without constitutional interpretation by the High Court, we wouldn't have the Mabo decision (an interpretation of the "on just terms" wording) nor would we have the right to freedom of political speech (an interpretation of the definition of representative government). And almost every country in the world has constitutions that are interpreted by their Supreme Courts -- not doing so would make the Constitution unusable as a supreme law of the land.
- baybal2 8y agoYou substantiation for your position are weak. The degree that separates a constitutional state vs. inconstitutional ones is the firm definition of its legal state – a source of truth in the system, and not an amorphous interpretation existing in heads of demented supreme court justices.
- cyphar 8y agoCan you give an example of a constitutional state which does not have "amorphous interpretation existing in heads of demented supreme court justices"? None come to mind.
- baybal2 8y agoI can give you both, an extreme example of a country whose judiciary champions the trollishly named concept of "legal realism" (better to be called legal surrealism,) and a number that continue to uphold the rationality that law was written to a rule to follow. The first one is USA, whose judiciary gladly swallowed the executive order 6102, and the entirety of nonsense surrounding domestic surveillance programs. One whose supreme court said that a man has "in fact gained" wealth from surrendering his gold for less than half of its price, and managed to validate FISA courts whose very existence goes prima fascie against the word of 10+ constitutional statutes. The second, the best example I know of is Pakistan, and to some extend India. British legal process, as well as German empire's one was textualist for quite long time. A very famous case of late British empire law, if not the most known one was when a man sentenced to hanging was pulled out of the noose in the very last moment, when a lawyer argued that "a sentence of hanging, gives no permission for murder." Even today, a supreme justice of Pakistan, a man known for the thunderous legal activism, is bound by hands and legs by the word of constitution, and hits the stone wall of SJC's opposition when his actions diverge even by a single letter from his formal legal mandate.
- neotek 8y agoA few days ago I, an Australian, got an Apple News alert on my laptop about a Washington Post article that discussed Pell's conviction. When I clicked the alert, Apple News opened and displayed the article in full, uncensored. I'm curious to know if Apple would therefore be in breach of the suppression order even though they're not the publisher, and if they are in breach, if anything is likely to happen to them as a result. I haven't seen any mention of it anywhere else, but I can't imagine I'm the only person to have received the alert.
- SpicyLemonZest 8y agoThat's part of the question on how gag orders can possibly work in a global information economy. How is Apple supposed to know that they have to pick out articles about this particular case and ensure that no Australian sees them? How is Australia supposed to send a gag order to the transitive closure of every content aggregator which might include the case?
- sjwright 8y agoThey don't need to work 100%, they just need to work enough so that a jury can be empanelled.
- vermontdevil 8y agoBut what about social media? Can’t see how these gag orders work anymore when you can see results on your FB wall or Twitter etc.
- mwill 8y agoInterestingly, the mods of /r/australia were mostly adhering to the order, which surprised me.
- primroot 8y agoThe first thing I recalled after learning about this case, was the case of Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton [0]. I have heard arguments in the past for this kind of censorship. In my country (Panama) the closest thing is called "reserva del sumario," (secrecy of the proceedings) but there is no way enforce it legally against parties not involved in the trial afaiu. The most the former chief prosecutor (of a very corrupt governement) was able to call on the main journalistic association to remind journalists of their dury to respect the secrecy of the proceedings. I stand in favor of not limiting freedom of expression. We should not limit ourselves to framing the issue as one of free expression vs a free trial (or a free election, since I just mentioned a Latin American country). Risking being too optimistic, I think that instead of framing the issue as one overexposed potentially false suspicions or opinions, one should see it as one of underexposed relevant opinions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Chamberlain-Creighton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Chamberlain-Creighton
- afedseedx 8y agoMedia the world over do withhold names: rape victims, underage defendants, so it isn't impossible for them to control themselves if there was a clear risk of a miscarriage of justice (which may or may not be the case in this instance). Slightly off-topic, but the picture in the article of a (recently demolished) newsstand neatly represents the international portrayal of Australia...laid back people in flip-flops lounging about without a care in the world. The reality is that, given the location, those were far more likely to have been tourists.
- jamesrcole 8y ago> The reality is that, given the location, those were far more likely to have been tourists That's my hometown and I doubt they're far more likely to be tourists. I think it's more likely they're University students (from QUT).
- muro 8y agoAnyone knows how such trials work? What evidence can there be from 30 or more years ago? Is it two parties saying the opposite and the jury choosing who to believe?