Reporting Diary

Press, 26 July 1980, Page 2

Reporting Diary

“Private Eye i 9 . . . A STRANGE anomaly in New Zealand’s legal system is being realised by readers of Britain’s "Private Eye” satirical magazine. “Private Eye” is available in New Zealand to subscribers at $36.90 a year. It cannot be bought over the counter. So it is to the privileged few subscribers of the magazine in New Zealand that a striking revelation is being made this week, as copies .of the.latest edition of the.

magazine arrive in their letter boxes. What is this mysterious revelation? Read on . . . . . . reveals all REMEMBER when, a few weeks ago, a New Zealand High Court judge suppressed the names and occupations > of all those people asso- . dated with a court .case, as well as the nature of the charges pressed? Remember all the fuss it .' caused, with people from one end of the country to the ■ other protesting against - such an unprecedented judicial step? XJfell, the latest issue of “Private Eye” has- a report from New Zealand whichJjust happens to mention the charges as well as the names and positions of !two of the persons involv.ed in the case. Contempt of court? Maybe. Maybe not. According to the law, evidence suppressed in a court case in New Zealand may be published overseas! But when that foreign publication comes back to the country in which the gvi-.

dence has been suppressed, the position becomes more complicated. The same anomaly in the law, which is based on English law, came to light several weeks ago, when the “Mr Asia” preliminary hearing began in Lancashire, England: The evidence could not be published in England, but it could be, and was, published in New Zealand and Australia, where it held as much, if not more, interest. Oops! THURSDAY'S note about the increasing number of cyclists not using a light on their bicycles at night unfortunately made an ass of itself by getting the results of the snap survey round the wrong way. What we meant to say was that, while driving home from work on Tuesday evening we observed that only one in nine cyclists had a light on the bicycle, and not vice versa. The statistic doesn’t take into account those lights that a lot of cyclists are wearing strapped to their outside leg. They are not only illegal, but are also very difficult to see sometimes, especially from the front of. an approaching cyclist if you happen, to be., a

motorist making a righthand turn across the cyclist’s path. Be warned. Extra duty A DARFIELD reader telephoned yesterday to- sing the praises of Christchurch’s senior rural traffic officer, who was passing through the small Canterbury town. He had stopped at a Darfield service station to fill his car with petrol, when the station attendant happened to mention that there was a big funeral on up the road. “Mr McLachlan then spent half an hour up the road, directing the traffic coming out of the funeral,” our informant said. “There must have been a hundred or more cars. It is good .to see the top officers taking the time to do a thing like that.” Optimistic THE MAYOR of Christchurch (Mr Hamish Hay) was invited to attend the hundredth birthday celebrations of a St Albans woman hot long ago, and so he noted the date jn.his diary, and this week went to the church hall where the party-was to be held, at the appointed time. But there was- not a soul in

sight. After waiting a few minutes he realised something must be wrong and so he returned to his 'office in town. Wondering what had happened, Mr Hay telephoned the person who had sent him tfie "invitation. “Oh, it’s not until next year,” he was told. Mr Hay had another look at the invitation card — sure enough, the party was set down for July, 1981. “There’s nothing like being an optimist, and planning in advance,” Mr Hay said yesterday. “Of course, I’m optimistic that after the council elections on October 11, I’ll still be invited to the party in 1981." He had, he said, made an entry in his diary for the same time next year. Love match BJORN BORG, five-times Wimbledon champion, has recently been appearing in European advertisements endorsing the latest model of the Saab, a Swedishmade motor car. This has led to the suggestion that after his marriage this week to Mariana Simones'cu, his wife should be known as Mem-Saab.