More prosecutions threatened for Court suppression breaches
Britain’s top law official is threatening more prosecutions of those who breach Court suppression orders or who commit contempt of court.
Dominic Grieve, the country’s Attorney General, in New Zealand for a meeting of Attorneys General from the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand says you can’t have a common law system of justice --- such as New Zealand and Britain have --- "unless there is willingness to respect the rule of law and the criminal process."
Speaking on TV3’s "The Nation" he said one of the problems of social media like Twitter was that not only could it cause a contempt of court to go viral but it emboldened the press "who think well if this is happening out on social media it no longer matters what we're publishing either."
Mr Grieve conceded that "up to a point" it was not possible to police Twitter.
"You can't pick up every single example where somebody may break the law," he said.
"But at the same time I think you can bring home to people that there are consequences of breaking the law."
Mr Grieve also defended Britain’s adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights in the wake of criticism from the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) which made big gains at Council election this week.
He said he shared some of the criticism of the way courts had interpreted the Convention.
" But we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water<" he said.
"We've also got to accept that the court has been extraordinarily effective in promoting human rights in European countries, where human rights have frankly been very shaky. "