Yesterday Cameron Slater announced that he would be seeking bankruptcy. It is unlikely to help him to avoid the stress of dealing with the legal consequences. The three current defamation cases that he is defending so badly have very little to do with money and a lot to do with making sure neither he nor any other arsehole dares to use his vile tactics again.
Bob Jones is now suing the woman that wants to strip him of his Knighthood over her use of the term “hate speech.” Can we think about perhaps stopping this litigiousness now?
The political right wing has been kicking itself in the head all over the courts recently. For those of you keeping score at home we have…
Andrew Little questioned the actions of this government, as he should, and has fronted up and taken personal responsibility for offense taken by other parties, as he should. He has endured a costly and draining leagal process with a result widely hailed as a victory for democracy. But apparently that isn’t enough, so here we go again.
The defamation case against Andrew Little has been an unwelcome distraction while he should have been free to do his job as leader of the largest opposition party. The consensus is that the process delivered a qualified win for Little, and a clear win for democracy.
The teapot payout shows that, while Key is keen on distinguishing between his various hats when he’s trying to dodge responsibility, he is just as keen on ignoring the differences if it lets him dip into public money.
Key has made a payout in the Bradley Ambrose defamation case over the “teapot tapes”.
Teapot tape cameraman Bradley Ambrose plans to take a defamation case against John Key. A crowdfunding campaign has been set up to help him raise the $38,000 required.
Respected journalist Jon Stephenson has extracted an apology and payment from the NZ Defence Force for their attack on his work in 2011. He is owed an apology from John Key too…
Stephen Price wrote on an interesting Appeal court decision that relates to blogging and defamation. The decision seems to leave a considerable amount of room for lawyers to continue to explore. But it effectively lays out some guidelines about site responsibilities.
A nice decision by Justice Asher. We are now sort of journalists. But it left Cameron Slater naked in front of the clipping shears of Matthew Blomfield’s defamation case.
The NZ Defense Force have been defending themselves in a defamation case against some grossly inaccurate claims that they made about reporter Jon Stephenson back in 2011 (and that John Key recklessly and foolishly chimed in on). They have been forced to concede that their claims were inaccurate. But a hung jury about how defamatory the claims were is causing it to proceeding to second trial. It looks like legal maneuvering by the NZDF has failed. My view is that the NZDF are being completely stupid about owning up to their screwup.
The Whaleoil blog is in court on Monday. There is a full day session in the High Court in Auckland looking at the appeal by Cameron Slater against Judge Blackie’s decision in the District Court that the blog is not a news medium. Therefore Slater was not a journalist, and was therefore not able to protect his sources who provided stolen material to allow him to apparently defame Matthew Blomfield. The decision will probably provide case law about the status of blogs in the law and the responsibilities of news mediums.
Judith Collins pledged to take Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little to court for defamation after they suggested she was involved in leaking Bronwyn Pullar’s name via Slater-Lusk. Today she dropped the suit after a letter from Mallard and Little in which a) don’t concede defaming her and b) deny intent to do so. A huge back down from Crushless.
Cabinet today will decide whether the Crown will pick up the tab for Judith Collins’ defamation suits. The suit against RNZ, whose offence was to do live interviews, is particularly egregious and calculated to chill media comment. It will be unprecedented for the public to pay for a minister to take defamation suits. But we will. Anything less will be a vote of no confidence in Collins by her colleagues.
You know that bookies sense when there is blood in the water and they’ll create contracts. I don’t gamble but the interesting contracts today in my mind are “Judith Collins to cease being a Minister before 1 June 2012”, “An ACC official ….to be found to have leaked Boag email”, “Beehive staffer to be found to have leaked Boag email”, etc. And a politician is definitely in trouble in NZ when they start talking about defamation 🙂
