Justice Open and Shut: Suppression Orders & Open Justice in Australia and the UK

University of Technology, Sydney

4th June 2014

“There is one hell of a fight going on in Australia to preserve our free press. We are increasingly seeing the rich and powerful resort to litigation to pursue journalists’ sources or lodge defamation writs purely to stop the publication of stories and scare off the rest of the media."

Nick McKenzie, Fairfax Media, 2014 Press Freedom Australia Address

This workshop will explore the operations and impact of suppression orders on reporting

in Australia and the UK.

Director UTS: ACIJ Tom Morton: 2 9514 1317,

CEO ROLIA Kate Burns: 2 8076 8221,

Hosted by the Rule of Law Institute of Australia and the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism and supported by the Centre for Cosmopolitan Civil Societies, University of Technology, Sydney.

Justice Open and Shut: Suppression orders and open justice in Australia and the UK - Wednesday 4 June 2014

Time / Session / Speaker
9.45-10am / Registration / Maryann House, Level 3, 645 Harris St, Ultimo
10am / Welcome & outline of sessions / Associate Professor Tom Morton (UTS) & Kate Burns, CEO Rule of Law Institute of Australia
10.10 -11am / Suppression Orders: A Fine Balance
Peter will talk about some topical case studies that touch on the issue of suppression orders, including
- the Rolf Harris trial
- 'Lawyer X'
- Julian Assange and Oscar Pistorius / Peter Bartlett, Partner at Minter Ellison Lawyers, Chair of the Advisory Board at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at Melbourne University
11 - 11.30am / Reporting under Suppression – Journalists’ Experience of Suppression Orders and Legal Restrictions on Reporting
Moderator: Sharon Davis / Sharon Davis, senior journalist and radio documentary producer
Adele Ferguson, senior business writer and columnist for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald and author of the ‘Gina Rinehart: The Untold Story of the Richest Woman in the World’.
Elissa Hunt, former court and legal affairs reporter with the Herald-Sun, recently appointed as the Digital News Editor.
11.30 –11.45am / Break
11.45 -12.45pm / Open Courts: Who Guards the Guardians? / Hon. Philip Cummins, former Supreme Court judge, Chair of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, Chair of the Victoria Law Foundation and Chair of the Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry.
12.45 – 1.30pm / Lunch
1.30 – 2.30 pm / The UK situation: Translucent justice? Digital and physical access to UK courts
Current Research and Issues in Open Justice – Australia / Judith Townend, Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism, City University, London
Jason Bosland, Deputy Director of the Centre for Media and Communications Law at Melbourne Law School
2.30 – 2.45pm / Break
2.45- 3.30pm / Testing the law in NSW: The big end of town and suppression orders in security cases / Miiko Kumar, Barrister, Jack Shand Chambers and Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney
3.30 – 4.15pm / The case of Patient A: Open justice, investigative journalism and forensic patients / Mark Pearson (Griffith) and Tom Morton (ACIJ, UTS)
4.15pm / Wrap-up / Wendy Bacon Professorial Fellow ACIJ & Kate Burns

Note: Drinks will follow the workshop

Justice Open and Shut: Suppression orders and open justice in Australia and the UK - Wednesday 4 June 2014

Speakers (in order of schedule)


Peter Bartlett is one of Australia's leading media and communications law experts, representing clients including Fairfax in major defamation and breach of confidentiality court actions, and in applications to oppose suppression and non-publication orders in court proceedings. He is Chair of the Advisory Board at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at Melbourne Universityand author of the law precise for the MEAA publication ‘State of Press Freedom in Australia’in 2013 and 2014. He is a Partner at Minter Ellison.

Sharon Davis is a senior journalist and radio documentary producer. As the winner of four Walkley awards and numerous other national and international awards, she is well known for her ability to combine the rigour of investigative journalism with the eloquence of fine radio feature making.

Adele Ferguson is a multi-award winning senior business writer and columnist for leading Fairfax newspapers, the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald and author of the best selling unauthorized biography ‘Gina Rinehart: The Untold Story of the Richest Woman in the World’. With more than 20 years in journalism, Adele carries a reputation as one of Australia's most respected and well-read commentators.Prior to joining the Age and the SMH, Adele was a senior commentator with the Australian. She has also worked at BRW Magazine as deputy editor and chief business commentator, leading many major investigations into the corporate sector.

Elissa Hunt has been a court and legal affairs reporter with the Herald-Sun in Victoria for more than 13 years. Her work has been recognized through numerous awards from the Victorian Law Foundation, including the 2014 Law Foundation’s Reporter of the year on Legal Issues. Elissa has recently been appointed as the Digital News Editor.

Keynote Speaker: The Honorable Philip Cummins is Chair of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, Chair of the Victoria Law Foundation and a Senior Fellow (Hon) at the Melbourne Law School.

Mr Cummins was a Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria from 1988 to 2009 and was Senior Judge of the Trial Division and Principal Judge of the Criminal Division of the Court. He was Chairman of the Victorian Bar and at the time of his judicial appointment was Senior Vice-President of the Australian Bar.

Following his judicial retirement, in 2011-2012 Mr Cummins was Chair of the Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry.

Mr Cummins holds several degrees from the University of Melbourne including Master of Laws and Master of Science (Psychiatry). He lectured in Legal Ethics at the Melbourne Law School for 25 years.

Mr Cummins has been a long-standing proponent of open courts.

Judith Townend, a lecturer in journalism at City University London, visiting UTS for two weeks as part of the Erasmus Mundus exchange programme. Judith also works as a research associate on an AHRC-funded project on media plurality at the University of Westminster. In 2011-12 she led the ‘Open Justice in the Digital Era’ project at City's Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism (CLJJ), which facilitated discussions about judicial and courts procedure and policy between leading journalists, lawyers and academics. Her doctoral research, based at the CLJJ, explores defamation and privacy law, freedom of expression, and journalistic practice in England and Wales. Her current research interests include media and communications law and policy, hyperlocal and start-up journalism and digital open justice.Email: / Twitter:@jtownend.

Jason Bosland is Deputy Director of the Centre for Media and Communications Law at Melbourne Law School, where he teaches communications and intellectual property law. He holds degrees from Melbourne and the London School of Economics. His primary research interests lie in media law, including defamation and privacy, open justice and the media, contempt of court and freedom of speech.

Miiko Kumar, Barrister, Jack Shand Chambers and Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney. Kumar appears regularly in applications for suppression orders on behalf of government agencies. She will provide an overview of the law relating to different forms of suppression orders, including the Court Suppression and Non-Publication Orders Act 2010 (NSW) which is intended as the model statute for all Australian jurisdictions, and claims of public interest immunity for non-publication and closed court orders, as well as recent cases involving Gina Rinehart and her attempted use of suppression orders in relation to court proceedings.

Mark Pearson is Professor of Journalism and Social Media at Griffith University, Queensland, where he is a member of the Griffith Centre for Cultural Research and the Socio-Legal Research Centre. He is author of Blogging and Tweeting Without Getting Sued (Allen & Unwin, 2012) and co-author (with Mark Polden) of The Journalist's Guide to Media Law (5th ed, Allen & Unwin, 2015), has worked as a journalist for international and Australian media outlets, and was a section editor at the national daily, The Australian. He is Australian correspondent for Reporters Sans Frontieres. He blogs from journlaw.com and tweets from @journlaw.

Tom Morton is Associate Professor of Journalism and Director of the ACIJ at UTS. Prior to joining UTS he was an award-winning reporter, presenter, investigative journalist and radio feature and documentary producer with the ABC. He and Mark Pearson are currently undertaking a collaborative research project on forensic patients, investigative journalism and open justice.