Closed courts: The secret state is no solution

Legal representatives say their clients' court experiences are none of your business

None of us is entitled to do whatever we like in secret.

EVERYONE seems to be jumping on the secrecy bandwagon, as lawyers seem to argue that you have no right to know what is going on in the justice system.

For two days in a row, in Gympie alone, a court has rejected what magistrate Chris Callaghan ruled were unjustified requests for censorship - censorship not of our right to report, but of your right to know.

It is this right which keeps the court system and the law accountable, outing injustice and keeping the courts honest, just as the courts have their own powers to enforce honesty on the rest of us, including the media and the police.

None of us is entitled to do whatever we like in secret.

Yesterday, Mr Callaghan refused a request to suppress public information about a court case involving alleged stalking.

The day before, an environmentalist pleaded guilty to damaging trees in a national park, accompanied by pleas for secrecy from him and, strangely, from the Environment Department prosecutor.

Mr Callaghan said recent suppression orders in other courts reflected exceptional circumstances affecting an accused's right to a fair trial.

Those circumstances did not exist in the two cases before him in Gympie this week, he ruled.

It is generally accepted that secrecy too often can often foster corruption and, as a great American judge once said, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Originally published as Closed courts: The secret state is no solution