Indefinite Imprisonment For Web Site Content

Suriken writes "In an unprecedented move, the New Zealand Solicitor General is seeking an indefinite prison sentence against American businessman Vince Siemer for alleged breach of an interim gag order now more than three years old. Siemer was jailed for six weeks last year for refusing to take down a Web site accusing the chairman of an energy company of suspect business practices. Because he still refuses to take down the site, NZ Solicitor-General David Collins QC wants to lock up Siemer indefinitely, merely for asserting his own free speech. From the article: 'Siemer's [defense] claims the Solicitor General's action is barred by double jeopardy. He also maintains he had long ago proven in Court that the injunction was incorrect in fact and law but that the judge simply ignored the law and evidence. He says the gag order violates his freedom of expression guarantees in these circumstances.' Here's more coverage from an NZ television station."

Re:Standard sentence for contempt of court

[rcw-home]

Otherwise, why would any other judge even listen to your appeal? It's obvious you don't respect the authority of the court.

Of course he doesn't. Laws, precedence, bungled defense be damned: the court is wrong.

Re:Standard sentence for contempt of court

[wolf12886]

That may be, but just because his court ruling makes authoritative sense, doesn't make it any more or less unjust.

What I find more amazing is...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that Slashdot actually cares that an American is being treated badly outside the USA. There is so much anti-USA sentiment here, it makes Osama Bin Ladin look like Uncle Sam's yes-man.

Re:Free speech.

[deniable]

The possibility of New Zealand joining is mentioned in the Australian constitution.

Re:Unfortunately

[Nasajin]

True, although I think that he's aware that what he has done is illegal. I think the purpose of his continuted breach of the gag order is possibly a form of protest over the attempted censorship of his website's content. The issue relates to an insolvency lawyer falsely declaring a company bankrupt in order to obtain control over the company's assets, and Seimer revealing this data on his website.

Some judges in New Zealand are corrupt, and others are so narrow-minded that they're damaging to people. The first year law paper at my university includes a portion on various judges' responses to rape cases, of which the most memorable response was that of "if you were wearing clothes like that, then you were asking for it." Not the most uplifting thing to know about your country's legal system.

Re:Free speech.

[harryjohnston]

Just out of curiosity, how far do you think someone's right to free speech goes? If someone convinced your boss that you were a member of al Qaeda, and you got fired as a result, would that still be free speech and perfectly OK by you?

Speech can cause harm, and since most Governments don't allow you to defend yourself against harm of this sort, I'd argue that the Government has an obligation to defend you instead, i.e., defamation laws.

e:Standard sentence for contempt of court - What!?

[Anonymous Coward]

What?

"Shady and morally bankrupt" is defamatory?

It sounds like a statement of opinion to me. Osama Bin Laden thinks he shits golden poop as God's emissary on earth. I think he is shady and morally bankrupt. All of a sudden I'm breaking the law for my opinion? Since when did we start imposing thought crimes?

The Claims aren't false

[MrMista_B]

Read the article - his claims have never been proven to be false.

Re:Free speech.

[baboo_jackal]

I could go on with a rant about everything wrong with the world, specifically Australia, and our legal system

I tell you what - as much as Americans and Australians have to complain about regarding our respective protections of free speech, at least we don't live in Canada. Apparently, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has the jurisdiction to try private citizens for expressing opinions that can be classified as "hatespeak": Show-Trial here. [pajamasmedia.com]

The Canadian Court of Acceptable Thoughts has a historical 100% (no shit) "conviction" rate [blogspot.com]:

1. A mayor of London, Ontario was fined by this court because she *didn't* mandate a taxpayer-funded celebration of Gay Pride Day, requested by an exceedingly small minority of citizens.

2. The owner of a printing shop in Mississagua, ON lost around $100,000 in revenue and fines when he chose to not print gay and lesbian promotional material - he had business dealings with homosexual clients in the past, but in this particular instance, chose to decline their offer, which was based on his own personal opinions.

3. In 2000, Kelowna, B.C. (the city) was dragged in front of the Canadian Kangaroo Court of "Human Rights" because they celebrated "Gay and Lesbian Day," in 1997 (yes, three years prior to the complaint). The complaint? They didn't include the word "pride" in the celebration. The Mayor of Kelowna was found guilty.

4. A chapter of the Knights of Columbus (a privately-funded, *clearly* Catholic organization) was fined for choosing to not rent their convention hall to a same-sex couple for their marriage celebration.

Yikes. So, I guess my point is, just be thankful you don't live in Canada. As numerous the faults American government has, at least they still let us think for ourselves and don't fine us for expressing our opinions.

Re:Unfortunately

[jd]

Regarding the rape cases, I was proud of the British judicial system when a judge refused to let a layer pull that particular stunt. The lawyer was basically told he was beneath contempt, and should decide between apologising or spending time cooling off in prison. It shows there are civilized judges and therefore some hope for the legal system.

Re:Free speech.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is ironic in NZ, that while we're a fairly liberal country, yet we also don't have our freedom of speech constitutionally protected to the same level as the United States, anyone with a big mouth could be silenced by someone who doesn't like it, that is exactly what has happened here - the whistle blower has been silenced by the big wig.

However, in NZ we exercise the freedom of speech we imagine we have without restraint, and if you ask anyone on the street in NZ they'd be surprised to learn we don't have such protection legally. Yet there are so few issues like this there's a corresponding lack of public outcry and push for a law change.

We're very quick to march on parliament (even riot as in 1981) over whatever political issue is the fancy of the week and to some extend our news media gets a kick out of cheer leading various issues almost to the point of sedition.

So it's dangerous that we still have law that is unfitting to the way we actually do things here. It's worse that this kind of thing is still enforced. I say good bloody on him for standing out for what he believes.

Oh yeah and f@@k the system etc etc...

Re:Free speech.

[H0D_G]

he's in new zealand, he doesn't have a right to free speech. he wouldn't have one in australia either. no bill of rights. means that what rights we have is a kind of grey area (though freedom of religion, from memory, is guaranteed in australia) but also means people can't be idiots then hide behind said bill.

Re:Free speech.

[baboo_jackal]

OK- sorry - to be completely correct: If the alleged offenders don't repent and offer to pay large sums of money to the complainants when their case is put before the CHRC (Canadian Human Rights Commission) which, again, has a 100 Percent History of ruling for the so-called "victims", they are referred to the CHRT (Canadian Human Rights Tribunal), where they must retry their case under the quasi-legal-oid rules of the CHRT, and then abide by the decision put forth by the CHRT (guaranteed to be transmitted within four months by snail-mail after the somewhat-legal-ish proceedings of the CHRT are concluded), or else appeal the results to a legitimate Canadian Federal Court within 30 days of receiving the results.

My guess is that the cost required to "settle" at the CHRC tier (i.e., "Give your accuser whatever he or she wants,") is *much* less than the cost of seeing an individual case through an actual "legitimate" (I use Sarcasm Quotes here, because I can't take Canadian jurisprudence seriously after learning about this...) court.

Canada has established a taxpayer-funded infrastructure to enable the filing grievances based on personal opinions where the aggrieved party *always* wins.

Re:Standard sentence for contempt of court

[geekgirlandrea]

You don't have the right to shout "FIRE!" in a crowded is one oft-quoted example.

Oft and stupidly quoted, considering that it was originally used [wikipedia.org] to justify upholding a prison sentence for distributing anti-draft pamphlets. It really isn't going to be helping your argument to quote sources like *that*.

Re:Free speech.

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest factor is that NZ is quite far away from Australia (OK air travel makes this less a problem). Also the treatment of native people (have a google for Treaty of Waitangi) was (is?) very different. A one stage NZ did send delegates when Australia was debating to become a federation. We also have very different native land animals.

It is unlikely to happen now as for NZers we would even up just being yet another state of Australia and probably more lowly than Tasmania at that.

Re:Free speech.

[Tony Hoyle]

I presume they inherited their law from the UK, as a colony, and would recognise the 1689 Bill of Rights, guaranteeing free speech.

Re:Free speech.

[Half a dent]

You can work for a good company and still have a dumb boss. They may have come from outside the organisation, having had an excellent interview but just aren't up to doing the job - not necessarily a fault of the selection process. Or they may have been promoted beyond their ability - admittedly that is more of a reflection on the employer. So you might not want to work for your boss but do want to work for your company.

Re:Standard sentence for contempt of court

[hakr89]

Actually, your right to free speech does cover the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. With this right comes a responsibility. You have a responsibility to the panic raised by yelling fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire.(Remember that no one really yells out fire anymore, so relate the panic caused by such an action to pulling the fire alarm in a building) Similarly, when you say or write something about someone, you are responsible for the damage it caused if the statement isn't true. What people don't seem to understand is that every right comes with a responsibility. The main responsibility freedom of speech brings is to be truthful in your words. The definition of defamation is

the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressively stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government or nation a negative image.

This case is where the Solicitor-General had the court put in an injunction against Siemer's website three years ago. Siemer has refused to take down the site and the Solicitor-General hasn't sued Siemer for defamation.
From the article:

"No one's proved that the information is defamatory or incorrect," says Siemer.
--
"No one in the courtroom has ever accused me of breaking the law. What they have accused me of is breaking or breaching the injunction which says that I can't speak truthfully about what Michael Stiassny is doing," says Siemer.

It isn't clear from the article whether he ever has tried to get the injunction overturned, so you could maybe fault him for that, though the Solicitor-General could be abusing his power by trying to shut Siemer up without taking him to court and contesting him on the facts of his claims. But you shouldn't just assume that the content of his website is defamatory at first glance when everything he is saying could be true.

You need to get off of your high horse and realize that freedom of speech is much more expansive than those few parts you've exercised.

Re:Free speech.

[GayBliss]

In each of your "Yikes!" examples, you have an individual that has used their own personal opinion to deny a group of people equal access to something that is enjoyed by everyone else. This is precisely why we have Human Rights Commissions in the first place. To prevent narrow minded individuals from deciding what is "right" for the rest of society.

It's clear from you language that you have a deep fear of homosexuals taking over the world, so I'm not going to bother arguing each of you examples, but #3 made me laugh. The city of Kelowna was not dragged in front of the Human Rights Commission because they celebrated "Gay and Lesbian Day". The truth of the matter is that the celebration was called "Lesbian and Gay Pride Day" and the mayor decided, due to his own personal opinion, that the word "pride" should not be included because he didn't like the idea of gay men and lesbians being proud of it.

What would you think if the mayor changed "Catholic Celebration Day" to "Priests raping young children day" because he happened to not like catholics? Do we elect officials to be our morality compass and only serve those individuals that agree with them? I certainly hope not.

Your other points, whether true or not, are basically the same issue. You have an individual deciding which groups can and cannot participate in society, and discrimination of this sort should rightly be controlled. Particularly when the individual is in a government position where they should be serving everyone in their jurisdiction, and not just the people they like.

Re:Free speech.

[msormune]

Oh so if someone calls you an asshole, and finds maybe 10 other people who can confirm this as true, it's ok? Because it's "proven"?

What about if call a black man with the n-word? It's true, after all?

Re:Free speech.

[Dracophile]

Considering the ratbaggery going on in Macquarie St and in Canberra we'll take any actual governing, even from Wellington. It would make a nice change.

Re:Free speech.

[theophilosophilus]

We have no written constitution in the sense the US does. In fact, our constitutional law is written but it is spread all over the place. There is no constitutional court and no need for lawyers (in general) to argue about the wording of the constitution. This works well because those in power have to do the right thing instead of what they think they can get away with.

I'm intrigued by this comment because I have just spent the last 2 years of upper level (American) constitutional law classes arguing that rights are better protected by an impartial judiciary rather than the majoritarian process. Can you elaborate?

My preference is a written (to tie the judiciary to something) constitution, that is counter-majoritarian (to protect individual rights against factions/ i.e. majoritarian abuse). How are individual rights protected by the legislative/majoritarian process? I am unfamiliar with the New Zealand system (though I have visited the beautiful country) and Wikipedia hasn't helped. England has the House of Lords which has served as its quasi-judicial branch (and is now, evidentally, converting to a supreme court system of judicial review). The House of Lords has life time tenure which ensures some degree of impartiality (in theory) - just like the American system. How does the NZ system protect individual rights?