Justin Quill: How the rich like Tom Silvagni exploit a legal loophole to buy court secrecy
Tom Silvagni has had two separate, top-tier legal teams on his case — a major reason why his name remained secret for so long. A legal expert has revealed how it’s exposed a shocking flaw in Victoria’s justice system.
Open justice as a concept is easy to define, but hard to appreciate.
On Thursday, open justice had a win when the suppression order protecting the identity of Tom Silvagni was lifted.
I appeared in court for the media the day Silvagni was first charged and the first of many suppression orders was put in place. That was June last year.
For the past 18 months, the suppression order fight has waged, and involved, about a dozen different hearings – that’s a dozen hearings just dealing solely with Silvagni’s demand for secrecy.
The fight started in the Magistrates’ Court, where Silvagni won.
The second quarter took place in the County Court, and saw the media win.
Silvagni rallied and took out the third quarter in the Supreme Court.
The media then appealed to the Court of Appeal and after further psychiatrist reports were prepared and submitted, the Court of Appeal proceeding was withdrawn.
Silvagni kept his order and the trial took place without the public being told the full story.
Only when Silvagni was found guilty — and after requests and pressure from the media — did the court relist the case for a review.
The DPP asked for the suppression to be lifted.
And so it was.
The Silvagni name is royalty in the AFL. There might be more famous families but I doubt there’s a bigger, and certainly not longer, dynasty.
In this case, the Silvagnis used their wealth to try to keep their son’s dirty little secret just that – secret.
Silvagni has had two separate counsel teams in this case – each led by distinguished and well-credentialed Kings Counsel. One team dealt with the criminal case, one dealt with the suppression order fight. That’s not something the average punter could afford.
Yet it was a major reason why Silvagni’s name stayed secret for so long. And if he’d managed to convince the jury there was reasonable doubt, I fear his name would have stayed secret for all time.
You might think this is an unusual or unprecedented case. Unfortunately, not in Victoria. Suppression orders are so common in that state that this year there are more suppression orders made there than in all the other states combined.
Let that sink in – there are more suppression orders in Victoria than the rest of the country combined.
Until September 2025, there were 361 suppression orders issued by Victorian courts.
NSW issued 124. Queensland issued 28.
And South Australia issued 123.
Let’s not even get into the argument as to why the suppression order laws are so out of date. They simply don’t take account of the reality of social media. In this case, that it was Tom Silvagni was one of the worst-kept secrets around.
But let’s put the futility of these orders aside.
Mental harm is the new battleground in the fight against suppression orders and a big reason for the large number of suppression orders made in Victoria. Defendants visit a psychiatrist and tell them some “facts” about their mental wellbeing. The psychiatrist isn’t required to test their patient’s “facts”. They accept them.
Then the “facts” appear in the psychiatrist’s report submitted to the court and effectively become unchallenged evidence.
It’s impossible for the media to test that “evidence” and the judge usually proceeds on the basis it’s all true, even though the defendant was never cross-examined on it.
This has happened – in part – because of a change to the law in 2013. That’s when the (ironically named) Open Courts Act was passed. It was supposed to reduce suppression orders. It’s done the opposite.
Part of the reason for that is that act changed one ground to obtain a suppression order from protecting someone’s “physical safety” to just protecting someone’s “safety”. In 2013, I doubt people were thinking that “safety” included someone’s mental wellbeing. But in this “safe space” world, the concept of someone’s “safety” including their mental wellbeing has become easier to accept. And so it has become a common ground for suppression order applications.
There have been many cases this year where the rich and famous – people that most readers of the Herald Sun would know – have had their names suppressed.
It’s hard for judges. A barrister can cobble together an argument for a suppression order. That then puts the judge in a tough position. Judges have to choose between a possible terrible outcome in a particular case (for example, the possibility a person harms themselves) or the undermining of the open court principal.
One outcome appears real and dire – the other seems hypothetical. Once our judges start thinking like that, open justice is doomed.
And the more that suppression order applications are made, the more they are in the mind of prospective defendants and the more suppression orders will be made.
That is how Victoria has ended up where it is – top of Australia’s suppression order tree, by a long way.
So Thursday’s decision to lift the Silvagni suppression order was a step in the right direction. Yet we need changes to the law – starting with the reinsertion of the word “physical” in the safety ground of the Open Courts Act. Beyond that, we need judges to be courageous and make decisions putting the public interest in open courts ahead of the concerns for individuals.
Justin Quill is a partner at law firm Thomson Geer, which acts for The Herald Sun
Originally published as Justin Quill: How the rich like Tom Silvagni exploit a legal loophole to buy court secrecy
