Workshop: Justice Open and Shut: Suppression Orders and Open Justice in Australia and the UK

Workshop

Justice Open and Shut: Suppression Orders and Open Justice in Australia and the UK

A workshop for journalists, lawyers, academics and anyone with an interest in open justice, the media and freedom of the press.

“There is one hell of a fight going on in Australia to preserve our free press. We are increasingly seeing the rich and powerful resort to litigation to pursue journalists’ sources or lodge defamation writs purely to stop the publication of stories and scare off the rest of the media.” Nick McKenzie, Fairfax Media, 2014 Press Freedom Australia Address

Defamation writs and pursuit of journalists’ sources are not the only threat to press freedom in Australia. The increasing use of suppression orders undermines fair and accurate reporting of the courts and the fundamental principle of open justice.

Keynote address: 'Open Courts: Who Guards the Guardians?'
Keynote speaker: Hon. Philip Cummins - former Supreme court judge and Chair of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, Chair of the Victoria Law Foundation and Chair of the Protecting Victoria's Vulnerable Children Inquiry.

Other speakers:

• Peter Bartlett: Partner Minter Ellison, Chair of the Advisory Board at the Centre for Advanced Journalism ast Melbourne University. Author of the law precis for MEAA State of Pres Freedom in Australia. Bartlett has represented Fairfax media and others in relation to suppression orders. He will speak on the use of suppression orders and its impact on the media and journalism, the operation of take down laws and trends observed since the introduction of the new Acts.
• Miiko Kumar: Barrister, Jack Shand Chambers and Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney. Kumar appears regularly in applications for suppression orders on behalf of government agencies. She will provide an overview of the law relating to different forms of suppression orders, as well as recent cases involving Gina Rinehart and her attempted use of suppression orders in relation to court proceedings.
• Judith Townend: Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism, City University, London. Townend will speak on 'Transluscent justice? Digital and physical access to UK courts'.
• Academics and journalists Mark Pearson (Griffith) and Tom Morton (University of Technology, Sydney): Open justice, investigative journalism and forensic patients.
• Elissa Hunt: has been a court and legal affairs reporter with the Herald-Sun in Victoria for more than 13 years.  Her work has been recognized through numerous awards from the Victorian Law Foundation, including the 2014 Law Foundation’s Reporter of the year on Legal Issues. Elissa has recently been appointed as the Digital News Editor.
• Adele Ferguson: a multi-award winning senior business writer and columnist for the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald and author of the best selling unauthorised biography Gina Rinehart: The Untold Story of the Richest Woman in the World. Prior to joining the Age and the SMH, Adele was a senior commentator with the Australian. She has also worked at BRW Magazine as deputy editor and chief business commentator, leading many major investigations into the corporate sector.
• Jason Bosland: Deputy Director of the Centre for Media and Communications Law at Melbourne Law School where he teaches communications and intellectual property law. He holds degrees from Melbourne and the London School of Economics. His primary research interests lie in media law, including defamation and privacy, open justice and the media, contempt of court and freedom of speech.

This workshop is hosted by the Rule of Law Institute of Australia and the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism and is supported by the Centre for Cosmopolitan Civil Societies, University of Technology, Sydney.

 
Note: Full program will be available shortly at the UTS:Australian Centre for Independent Journalism.