NATIONAL BUSINESS REVIEW - Justice Virginia Bell, of the NSW Supreme Court, has called for the internet to be purged of any material likely to prejudice a trial in order to prevent jurors conducting their own investigations into cases on which they are sitting, according to The Australian. The judge made the proposal at a conference of Supreme and Federal court judges from across Australia, but there were apparently few takers. Independent research by jurors is already illegal in Australia.
Judge Bell said prosecutors should comb the internet for potentially prejudicial material -- such as archives of stories mentioning persons involved in criminal cases -- and tell Australian ISPs to render the information inaccessible. ISPs suggested that was impossible, according to the story, because much of the material was likely to reside on offshore servers -- such as search engines like Google and independent archives of newspapers, not to mention the internet archival project's comprehensive attempt to mirror the entire internet. But Judge Bell contends that anyone serving up such material could be subject to contempt of court proceedings, regardless of where they were located.
Her position has some history in Australia. The High Court found in a 2002 defamation case -- Gutnick v Dow Jones -- that internet articles are published where they are read. That could bring the New York Times within the jurisdiction of an Australian court for defamation purposes -- and possibly for criminal contempt proceedings.
Next thing we'll hear is China is charging and sentencing the webmaster of a Chinese History website in absentia for sedition. Freedom of speech has been enhanced world wide by the web. We certainly don't want to undermine the progress made. I certainly hope someone takes on this one on in the International Courts.
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