THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1931. REPORTS OF JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21406, 6 August 1931, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1931. REPORTS OF JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS.

A Bill, introduced by Mr Fraser, member for Wellington Central, was under discussion in the House of Representatives this week, which has for its object the regulation of the publication of judicial proceedings “ in such manner as to prevent injury to public morals.” It may seem somewhat odd that a prominent member of a party which objects strongly to the operation of a censorship on printed books should be responsible for a measure that proposes to institute a rigid censorship over the press of the Dominion. We do not suggest, however, that Mr Fraser has any but the highest and best motives for the promotion of this Bill. Moreover, he has precedent for it, and apparently the Bill is, except in a detail that may not be very material, a transcript of the British Act under which restrictions are imposed on the newspapers in respect of their publication of the reports of judicial proceedings. Opinions differ at Home with reference to the wisdom of the restrictive legislation now that it has been in operation for some few' years. Actually the law applies there, in practice, only to the reports of divorce proceedings, It is quite possible that it has been the means of preventing the publication in the sensational section of the British press of undesirable details in proceedings of this description. To this extent it may have justified itself. For the most part, however, the English newspapers confine, and have always confined, their reports of divorce proceedings to those cases in which are involved the names of famous or notorious .persons in whose affairs and - intrigues the public is supposed to take an interest. The majority of the cases are never even mentioned. The British law allows — as Mr Fraser’s Bill proposes to allow in New Zealand —the publication of the summing-up of the judge and' tile finding of the jury (if any)' and the judgment of the Court and observations made by the judge in giving judgment, provided that they contain no details that might be injurious to the public morals. It is not very clear, after all, that those who are concerned, and rightly concerned, with the public morals would gain a great deal through the enactment in New Zealand of a law similar to that in force in Great Britain. The daily press does not publish indecent details in its reports of divorce or other proceedings in the courts. There is no justification for a suggestion that it is anxious or even willing to mention any feature of a divorce case which might be regarded as offensive. And it is easy to argue that the interest of the community is' served by the discreet publication of the evidence that is given in these proceedings. On the other hand, the distinct danger-exists that a censorship of the reports of judicial proceedings offers an incentive to collusive practice. If, however, there is any reason to believe that the publication of a report of the proceedings in a divorce case might be harmful, a provision already exists in the law of the land, in the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act, under which the court may, on the application of the petitioner or of the respondent, or at its own discretion, try a divorce case in camera or, if it is tried in open court, prohibit ttie publication of the evidence or other proceedings. Quite opportunely, this clause was invoked by the Chief .Justice only yesterday in a ease which came before him in Wellington. This provision, which, Sir Michael Myers suggested, might apply also to the publication of pictures of parties or witnesses in the case, appears amply to protect the public against the moral injury which might come as a result of the publication of unsavoury details in divorce cases. It leaves it to the discretion of the judge to say whether proceedings of this character should or should not be reported, and the judge seems to us to be the proper person to decide, the point. There must be every sympathy on the part of right-thinking people with the desire of churchmen, who are claimed by Mr Fraser as supporters of his Bill, to protect the community from the contamination that might be caused through the reporting of distasteful details of the evidence in judicial proceedings. But, generally speaking, encroachments on the liberty of the press, which, on the whole, exercises a sound discretion in its presentation of the reports of delicate cases in the courts, are not desirable. After all, the press is, to a very large extent, the guardian of the public interest.