The Free Speech Union demands Minister of Justice step in
after the Human Rights Review Tribunal told world-renowned
journalist Helen Joyce that she will be barred from taking
notes or sitting with the media during the Wellington Pride
Festival Incorporated vs. Lesbian Action for Visibility
Aotearoa (LAVA) case hearing tomorrow, referring to the
Criminal Procedure Act 2011, a law written for
criminal trials, says Jillaine Heather, Chief
Executive of the Free Speech Union.
“You couldn’t
make this up. Criminal procedure is being invoked to keep an
international women’s rights reporter out of the room in a
civil human rights hearing. This is either bureaucratic
arrogance or utter incompetence.
“The absurdity
doesn’t end there. The email informing Joyce of her
exclusion came not from the Tribunal itself, but from ‘the
media team at the Ministry of Justice’.
“So much
for judicial independence. The very department the Tribunal
is supposed to be independent from is now acting as its
spokesperson. When the Ministry’s comms people are
deciding who can report on a Tribunal hearing, there is no
open justice. You have state-managed optics.”
Irish
author and journalist Helen Joyce, currently on tour with
the Free Speech Union, says, “In my 17 years at The
Economist, I’ve covered courts, tribunals, and parliaments
around the world, and I’ve never encountered anything like
this. The New Zealand Human Rights Review Tribunal seems
frightened of scrutiny. A body charged with defending human
rights should stand up for the principle of open justice,
which is crucial to a functioning democracy, rather than
hiding behind bureaucracy to close reporting
down.”
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“This farce follows an earlier episode of
bureaucratic attempts to create silence around this case,”
says Heather. “Jenny Ruth, one of New Zealand’s most
experienced independent journalists, was ejected from an
earlier hearing after writing a publicly available article
quoting sworn witness testimony.
“The Tribunal
claimed that Ruth had ‘wilfully and without lawful
excuse’ disobeyed a non-publication order and declared her
not an ‘accredited media representative’ under the same
narrow definition now being used to exclude Helen Joyce.
Criminal law was cited in relation to her reporting
also.”
Journalist Jenny Ruth says, “I contend that
HRRT was wrong in that decision because it inappropriately
applied a legal provision relating to criminal proceedings
to a civil proceeding. I was deeply offended by their hasty
dismissal of my right to sit on the press
bench.”
“The Free Speech Union views Ruth’s
exclusion as further proof that the Tribunal is deploying
flimsy procedural pretexts based on criminal-law frameworks
unsuited to its civil human-rights role to silence scrutiny
and deter independent journalism,” says
Heather.
“The Free Speech Union is calling for
immediate intervention by Minister of Justice Paul
Goldsmith, noting that these are his officials. This is not
an operational matter. This is a constitutional
embarrassment.
“A Human Rights Review Tribunal,
steered by the Ministry of Justice’s PR department,
invoking irrelevant criminal law to silence a journalist of
international standing; it’s beyond parody. The Minister
must restore some sanity and remind his officials that open
justice is not
optional.”
