But occasionally you get one that is so weird or obtuse or willfully ignorant, it raises far more question than it settles, which is the opposite of the point. And in that regard, this one is an absolute cracker.
It's not a huge decision - it's only a couple of pages long, and it's a fairly minor matter, regarding media applications to take photos or record sound and video during the sentencing of someone for insider trading. The guilty party has since been sentenced to pay the FMA $150k and barred from acting as a director for five years, so the case has closed.
But while the case has been well and truly settled, Media Scrum remains perplexed by several things in the decision, and honestly can't tell if everyone involved is being willfully obtuse, or just plain ignorant, or just taking the piss. We're left with several questions about it, including:
* Does the judge making the decision really have no idea that Stuff's application refers to some of the country's biggest newspapers?
* Or are they trying to make some point about the need to be more specific in applications, and that every single Stuff publication - and all of its partner agencies - needs to be specifically mentioned in any further requests of this type?
* Where the shit is this vast repository of public domain images mentioned by the defendant's lawyer, which mean the "media applications serve no useful purpose"?
* And are these photos that already exist in the public domain of high enough resolution to be actually useful?
* No, seriously, what the fuck is the lawyer talking about? Finding photos of people who appear in court isn't as simple as doing a Google search and grabbing the first photo that comes up, because you'll run into a little issue called 'copyright'.
* How does photographing somebody in the dock make them look worse than the fact they're being ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars for extremely dodgy business practices?
* Or is it only "embarrassing, unfair, and disproportionate" to be seen in court when you're dealing with white collar crime?
* Couldn't this argument now be applied to any sentencing of any criminal in any court in New Zealand?
* Is it now "unfair" to take photos of any criminal during a court process?
* Or are we still just talking about white-collar scum?
* How the fuck does this ensure that 'justice is seen to be done', especially when you're dealing with somebody with a common name, who can now fade into the crowd of other Mark Talbots?
The Media Scrum team have more time wondering about this than the judge spent thinking about the biggest media company in the country, but frankly, your honour, we're still fucking stumped.
- Margaret Tempest
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