Judge to rule on trial video

Press, 19 April 1986, Page 8

Judge to rule on trial video

PA Auckland A High Court judge yesterday reserved decision on whether a film sequence of the jailed French agents, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, might be shown at the Cannes film festival. Mafart and Prieur, serving a 10-year sentence for manslaughter after the Rainbow Warrior bombing, sought an interim injunction in the High Court at Auckland to prevent a video clipping of their preliminary court hearing being shown at the international festival. Mr Justice Sinclair said he would give his decision

as Soon as possible. In their application for the injunction, the agents cited Judge Gilbert, of the District Court in Auckland as first respondent, and the Broadcasting Corporation as second respondent. Mr Brad Giles, for the applicants, said that on November 4 last year a video recording was made of the preliminary hearing of the charges at the old High Court at Auckland. The Broadcasting Corporation wished to show a documentary on the Rainbow Warrior affair at the Cannes international film festival, including 1.22 minutes from the video.

The documentary had been shown in New Zealand without the video clip. He said Mafart and Prieur, during the preliminary hearing, had consented to the use of closed-circuit television in another courtroom of the building to accommodate 120 journalists and minimise disruption to the Court. They did not, however, consent to a video recording being made. Mr Giles said that such a recording was an excess of jurisdiction by the presiding District Court judge, Judge Gilbert, that it was against natural justice, that the applicants had pot been given the

opportunity to be heard on the matter, and • that they had not been treated fairly or in accordance with others appearing in Court. Mr Barrie Travis, for the Broadcasting Corporation, submitted that Mafart and Prieur had not made out the grounds at this stage for an interim injunction. He said there was a distinction to be made between the decision to create the recording, which, he submitted, was made with statutory authority, and the decision to release the tape. The release decision was not made pursuant to

any statutory power and was, therefore, not reviewable by the Court. It was a private act by Judge Gilbert. The consent of the applicants was an irrelevant issue, he said. Mr Simon Lockhart, Q.C., for Judge Gilbert, said the Judge denied he acted unfairly. The word “unfair” was, he said, used in its technical, legal sense.

Judge Gilbert had acted at all times in a very responsible way, he said. Everything was done to ensure as best as possible that court procedure was made quite clear to the applicants.