Rights covenant ‘has no force’

Press, 21 April 1982, Page 13

Rights covenant ‘has no force’

PA Wellington An international covenant, even though ratified, has no force in a country’s, domestic law unless written into a statute, two leading Wellington lawyers have said. They were commenting on a suggestion that the recent secret court case in Auckland breached the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which New Zealand ratified in 1978.

Unless a law was passed in New Zealand in terms of an international covenant, and which provided some sanctions or penalties for breaches of it, the covenant had no force in law, according to one lawyer.

He said that there were a number of decided cases dealing with the validity of proceedings in closed court and suppression of the publication of evidence.

In one Canadian divorce case, the Privy Council held that a decree absolute granted in closed court was invalid.

, The other lawyer said that .he would be very surprised if the covenant referred to applied to the situation. He was more impressed with Section 375 of the Crimes Act, which empowered a judge to order a court to be cleared in certain circumstances but said that representatives of the news media could not be excluded. ;

In the. High Court at Auckland, Mr Justice Moller prohibited publication of the name of an accused, the sentence imposed, and the charge. He also cleared the public from the court and specifically ordered the only newswpaper reporter present to leave.