There’s a lot of debate out there in the blogosphere over yesterday’s decision by New Zealand District Court Judge David Harvey to prevent the online publication of the names and images of two men charged with the murder of teen John Hapeta.
It’s a curious one. As the likes of Bernard Hickey point out, this guy is no internet ignoramus; he’s actually one of our foremost authorities on cyber-law in New Zealand. If that’s the case, then he must surely recognise the impracticalities of his ruling. Name suppression orders are imposed on a regular basis in New Zealand, which makes this particular half-measure all the more curious. If it is Judge Harvey’s intention to restrict access to this information in order to prevent potential jurors being influenced during a future trial, why allow their names to be released in the first place at this stage in proceedings?
The judge states that he is “concerned with the viral effects of digital publication” - is he not similarly concerned with the viral effects of conversation around the water-cooler, in the pub, on the phone? Surely Judge Harvey is not so na?ve as to perceive the Internet as some sort of conduit for disrupting and influencing the judicial process? One can see what he is driving at, in wanting to restrict future access to the information, but the idea is just too full of holes to be practical.
At the end of the day, it’s a moot argument - the names are already out there should you care to google them. Even if they weren’t, the information is now public record, and can be accessed in future by anyone who can be bothered to track it down. While news websites may adhere to the ruling for fear of the legal ramifications, information online has a life of its own, and is no respecter of the law. As of 4.40pm on 26 August, there are 133 hits for the two names, and that will only grow exponentially. So what exactly was the point? It will be interesting to see where this precedent leads, as there is already interest internationally in Judge Harvey’s landmark ruling.
Reading the news of New Zealand High Court Judge David Gendall’s decision to allow court papers to be served via Facebook, it occurred to me that the inexorable move away from ’snail mail’ to online communication is at a tipping point. While social networking channels are of course used predominantly for social purposes, Judge Gendall’s ruling is the first time in New Zealand we’ve seen a social network used for clerical/administrative/official purposes. For many, social networks are already supplanting email as their primary form of written communication, and the practicalities of being able to instantaneously deliver a court order to someone on the other side of the world is a demonstration of how redundant paper mail is becoming. I still prefer getting Christmas and birthday cards via the postbox mind you.
An update to my 
