SA’s courts blocked public’s right to know almost 250 times in 2021, highest secrecy since 2000
The biggest criminal case in two decades has resurrected SA’s shameful habit of courtroom secrecy, with the public’s right to know blocked almost 250 times last year.
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The nation’s biggest organised crime bust has catapulted SA’s courts to their highest level of secrecy since the turn of the century, with almost 250 suppression orders imposed in 2021.
Statistics compiled by The Advertiser show SA’s courts were the second most secretive in Australia last year, due mainly to prosecutions arising from Operation Ironside.
Judges and magistrates imposed publication bans on 245 occasions, compared with 371 in Victoria and 214 in NSW.
It is the highest number of orders handed down since 2000-2001, when the “bodies in the barrels” serial killers John Justin Bunting and Robert Joe Wagner faced court.
Their case alone accounted for more than 220 orders, some of which banned publication of the fact a suppression had been imposed.
Ironside boasts similar duplication and even triplication, with some defendants suppressed in the Magistrates Court and both the civil and criminal jurisdictions of the Supreme Court.
The 2021 total is, by a wide margin, the most orders imposed in 20 years – beating even the 2007 tally of 216, when suppression laws were changed due to community outrage.
Press freedom advocates have labelled the tally “troubling” and called for a national review of whether orders are “inadequate” in the digital age.
University of Queensland Professor Peter Greste said judges may resort to suppressions to stem social media discussion of cases.
“Social media users are either unaware, don’t care, or have a radical view of what transparency and press freedom ought to be,” he said.
“It’s the legacy news media organisations that end up being limited, or even punished, with there being no effect on social media.
“Suppressions may ultimately be redundant in a digital era where people anywhere can get access to the information globally, let alone nationally.”
Dr Joseph Fernandez, from Curtin University, said the attitude of SA courts “went against the grain and tempo” of other jurisdictions.
“For example, in the recent Novak Djokovic (visa) case, the Federal Circuit Court went to some lengths to ensure the public could watch a live online broadcast,” he said.
“Other courts recognise the public has a keen interest in knowing how justice is dispensed.”
Intense court secrecy, allowed under Section 69A of the Evidence Act, between 2001 and 2006 sparked public outcry.
In 2007, legislative amendments prioritised “the public’s right to know” about cases – orders declined until 2014 but spiked in 2015.
Three years later, the Supreme Court overturned a landmark ruling that suppression was ineffective in the digital media age.
Almost 160 gag orders had been imposed by September 2021 – a further 86 were made before December 31.
Professor Greste said that “often, if not in most cases”, orders went unopposed unless a journalist was in court.
“When there’s no one to stand up, judges are inclined to simply wave through the order through … it’s easier for them to issue one than not,” he said.
“It feels to courts like the safe thing to do, but it ultimately has a corrosive effect on natural justice, open justice and transparency.”
Dr Fernandez said the 2021 tally demonstrated the 2007 amendments were “starting to show cracks”.
“Any lack of transparency demonstrated by the court bodes ill generally and contributes further to Australia’s broader transparency crisis,” he said.
“Continued vigilance is needed to ensure that SA’s record for suppression orders in 2021 does not remain an ongoing trend.”
BLANKET OF SECRECY OVER COURT PROCEEDINGS
OPERATION IRONSIDE
On June 7 and 8, 2021, SA Police and Australian Federal Police arrested more than 40 people in connection with the encrypted AN0M app.
Thought to be a safe way for criminals to communicate, the app allowed law enforcement to monitor their conversations – leading to arrests around the country and world.
Since those arrests, SA’s courts have heard AN0M played a role in earlier, seemingly unrelated busts spanning dozens of cases, many with multiple defendants.
The shifting nature of the case has meant rolling suppressions on defendants’ names, photographs, alleged roles in offending and even their possessions and assets.
At present, just 75 of the hundreds of people arrested can be publicly named while others are suppressed to safeguard the “proper administration of justice”.
NCA BOMBING
The infamous 1994 bombing of the National Crime Authority building on Waymouth St has occupied the minds of police for close to three decades.
It also accounts for 20 per cent of the suppression orders imposed by SA’s courts in 2021.
From the identities of informants to the names, addresses and businesses of witnesses, the trial of Domenic Perre is the most heavily suppressed in recent memory.
All of those suppressions were sought by prosecutors but, unusually, the vast majority were opposed by Mr Perre’s counsel, who argued the public should hear all of the evidence.
Supreme Court Justice Kevin Nicholson has yet to hand down his verdict in the trial.
ALLEGED DARK WEB DRUG TRIO
The record for the shortest suppression order of 2021 is held by Ryan Suri-Tucker, Erin Gold and Thomas James Booker.
The trio are alleged to be part of a syndicate that was making $25,000 a day by selling drugs on the dark web.
Upon the trio’s arrests, near blanket suppressions were thrown over the case while police moved to seize $1m in cash and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency.
Those suppressions only lasted 72 hours, however, with the magistrates court lifting the covers once those investigations and seizures had concluded.
Suri-Tucker, Gold and Booker have yet to enter pleas to the charges filed against them.
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