Fairfax cleared

Not surprisingly, the Dom-Post's main front page headline this morning is triumphant and self-congratulatory. The High Court has cleared the paper's owners and editor of contempt of Court charges, even though it has found that supression orders were breached. The nub of the stroy is outlined here:

Fairfax and the newspaper defended the case in a four-day trial in the High Court at Wellington last month.

The November 14 articles were based on a leaked police affidavit containing transcripts of conversations police had secretly intercepted between a handful of suspects - not named in the articles - thought to have attended military-style training camps in the Ureweras.

In early November Dr Collins had refused to allow police to lay charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act, leaving the accused to face only the original Arms Act charges. This meant the conversations intercepted by police could not be used as evidence.

The Fairfax decision to publish the articles followed what was thought to be anti-police public sentiment after Dr Collins' decision.

At the heart of the contempt-of-court case Dr Collins brought against Fairfax and Pankhurst was the allegation that the articles had prejudiced the fair trial of 19 people facing Arms Act charges.

But High Court chief judge Tony Randerson and senior judge Warwick Gendall said the issue had to be considered against the other material already before the public and the circumstances.

Above all else, this is another blow to the credibility of Solicitor-General Dr David Collins. It was revealed two weeks ago that Collins himself is the subject of a police investigation into a false declaration, alleged to have been made SINCE he took up the role of Solicitor-General. Keeping Stock believes that it is inexplicable that Dr Collins should be allowed top continue in the role of New Zealand's most senior legal person whilst the subject of an investigation into his integrity.

Helen Clark and Michael Cullen should be under sustained media scrutiny over this, but instead Cullen's office has been able to deflect questions with a mere "No comment". That is nowhere near good enough.