Without the gag, it's very unlikely that it would possible to obtain a conviction against Pell in the second trial.
Once the second trial is over, both verdicts are able to be discussed and circulated as news.
Sure if a person had a multitude of driving convictions in a child abuse case I can understand the court denying it as irrelevant, but that isn't what's happening here.
That said, judges have a lot of latitude to allow evidence of prior conviction if they feel it is in aid of a fair trial. They wield this power in order to keep all parties honest and unbiased as best they can. In this case - rightly or wrongly - the judge has decided that knowledge of the outcome of the first case would prejudice the second case, especially due to the emotional nature of the allegations. That's why the order was made.
While I have nothing but contempt for Cardinal Pell, who represents pretty much everything I dislike about the church, he has as much right to a fair and unbiased trial as any other person. Months of media saturation might indeed prejudice that, so I reluctantly support the intent of this kind of power, appropriately limited and temporary. It certainly is more complicated in the age of global media, however, and I really don't know what the answer is, if there even is one.
Prior criminal history isn't relevant at all to a criminal trial. Just because he robbed 10 banks before doesn't mean he robbed this one. It's prejudicial and really problematic any time a repeat offender is on trial-- the mentality becomes "well, the evidence is weak and nobody saw him do it, but he must be guilty...he's a criminal!"
Convictions are supposed to be made after considering the facts of the case as presented, not speculation based on past behavior.
.
* Obviously I don't have any hard figures so I don't know what percentage of people.
You can see how easy even a body without executive power per se can mop the floor with weakly defined common law freedom of speech statues
But having a constitution that is not open to interpretation would be unprecedented and would be an awful decision. Without constitutional interpretation by the High Court, we wouldn't have the Mabo decision (an interpretation of the "on just terms" wording) nor would we have the right to freedom of political speech (an interpretation of the definition of representative government). And almost every country in the world has constitutions that are interpreted by their Supreme Courts -- not doing so would make the Constitution unusable as a supreme law of the land.
The degree that separates a constitutional state vs. inconstitutional ones is the firm definition of its legal state – a source of truth in the system, and not an amorphous interpretation existing in heads of demented supreme court justices.
I don't think that's possible. Do you have an example for this?
Everything is to a degree subjective and this conversation itself is subject to interpretation.
The more complex the affair the fewer that will agree perfectly with any interpretation.
Hell even the beat cop gets to interpret the law when he is electing to enforce it by arresting the perpetrator.
You are asking for imaginary things.
Fairly well worded constitutions work, plainly and simple, there is no second thought about this.
The linked article, from the New York Times, elliptically discusses a topic that the New York Times itself cannot report on in its online edition, due to a gag order by an Australian judge. So it is not covered, and cannot be covered, by the modern-day equivalent of TV news.
As an Australian, I read an article stating that George Pell had been removed from the Pope's "council of nine (cardinals)", and then almost immediately after, read an article on the suppression order. A bit of quick searching, and I found out what the news was. Which begs the question, if the NYT (and presumably other international online media orgs) self-censored in the way described above, why would Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, not do the same?
EDIT: I'm not suggesting that the search engines should self-censor (or that they shouldn't), I'm just wondering why they'd come to a different conclusion than, say, the NYT.
The aggregation of information should never be censored; it is telling you where things are out there in the world.
As a loosely related topic; the conveyance of truthful or believed to be truthful information should never be suppressed. However polity asking someone to be quiet for a time or for some other reason might be. This is why I believe 'state secrets' and secrets of all other types should only be for a specific limited time, and that all official records MUST receive re-classification on a regular interval (say once every 10 years, but a new review party who must also agree that it's worth keeping secret for another 10 years). Failure to review should result in publishing ~1 year after the expiration period.
This is absolutely fascinating to me too, that an Australian court order is influencing the behaviour of media in another country - the NYT no less! I can't think of any precedent to this.
I'm Australian too, and I am honestly not sure how I feel about this. There are good arguments on both sides. We're really in uncharted territory.
Discussion about suppression of speech on the Internet.
On the day of the conviction, they released online articles about "suppression orders".
-----
* https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/why-the-media-is...
# Why the media is unable to report on a case that has generated huge interest online #
> A very high-profile figure was convicted on Tuesday of a serious crime, but we are unable to report their identity due to a suppression order.
> The person, whose case has attracted significant media attention, was convicted on the second attempt, after the jury in an earlier trial was unable to reach a verdict. They will be remanded when they return to court in February for sentencing.
-----
The article then goes on about suppression orders and how Google Trends for the person's name increased on the day of the trial.
So anyone who is internet-savvy would be able to figure out who it was.
Pell Online has the name, I think :) .
So stupid these orders, trying to change the truth.
These euphemisms are getting ridiculous. The person is cardinal George Pell, who has been convicted of sexual abuse (after an unanimous guilty verdict by the jury). He is the highest ranking member of the Catholic Church ever to be convicted as a sex offender.
It's getting down-right depressing to be an Australian citizen.
[1] https://www.itnews.com.au/news/australias-encryption-bill-fa... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/14/australian-gov...
Note that your source says that they are not moving the embassy until after a peace deal is reached.
> And we look forward to moving our embassy to West Jerusalem when practical, in support of, and after, final-status determination
So he is indeed already planning to move the embassy, and chose to make this decision public.
I'm curious to know if Apple would therefore be in breach of the suppression order even though they're not the publisher, and if they are in breach, if anything is likely to happen to them as a result. I haven't seen any mention of it anywhere else, but I can't imagine I'm the only person to have received the alert.
Slightly off-topic, but the picture in the article of a (recently demolished) newsstand neatly represents the international portrayal of Australia...laid back people in flip-flops lounging about without a care in the world. The reality is that, given the location, those were far more likely to have been tourists.
That's my hometown and I doubt they're far more likely to be tourists. I think it's more likely they're University students (from QUT).
1: http://outline.com/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/...
I have heard arguments in the past for this kind of censorship. In my country (Panama) the closest thing is called "reserva del sumario," (secrecy of the proceedings) but there is no way enforce it legally against parties not involved in the trial afaiu. The most the former chief prosecutor (of a very corrupt governement) was able to call on the main journalistic association to remind journalists of their dury to respect the secrecy of the proceedings.
I stand in favor of not limiting freedom of expression. We should not limit ourselves to framing the issue as one of free expression vs a free trial (or a free election, since I just mentioned a Latin American country). Risking being too optimistic, I think that instead of framing the issue as one overexposed potentially false suspicions or opinions, one should see it as one of underexposed relevant opinions.
