...POOR JUDGEMENT JUSTICE ASHER!!! if whale oil is a news service then I am john keys catamite: - Whaleoil blogger Cameron Slater has won a High Court nod that he is a journalist and that his blog is a news medium - but he still has to disclose his sources in a defamation case. And Slater has to pay the costs of his rival in the case. Slater, whose blog is at the heart of the Dirty Politics saga, is being sued by businessman Matthew Blomfield for defamation relating to a 2012 blog post. In the district court earlier this year Slater tried to argue that he was protected as a journalist under the Evidence Act from having to disclose sources. The district court said he was not a journalist and Slater appealed to the High Court, Justice Raynor Asher issued a ruling today in which he reversed the district court and said Slater was entitled to be seen as a journalist. Although Slater has blogged over the judgment saying its official now - Justice Ashers full judgment says the sources Slater was trying to protect need to be disclosed in the full defamation proceedings. Justice Asher said the case was not a whistle-blowing issue in which sources needed to be protected. Any public interest in protecting sources must be further diminished when there is evidence that a personal vendetta appears to be driving (Slaters reports), Justice Asher said. Further, where the material provided by the sources appears to have been unlawfully obtained, that is a further factor lessening the public interest in the free flow of information. The justice said the blog published by Slater are extreme and vindictive and have the hallmarks of a private feud. Justice Asher also states that the sources used by Slater came hard-drive and other documents (that) appear to have been obtained illegitimately. Slater has therefore been ordered to comply with discovery requirements in the substantive defamation hearing ahead and must pay Blomfields costs... [read on in link]
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 06:53:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015