The establishment of a national register, or the use of a courts information
7.24
officer, would not necessarily solve these issues, although it might help identify
them at an early stage. One possibility which might be useful, at least in the
context of orders for suppression of name, would be to create some standard
form orders, with accompanying standard form endorsements, for use in
unexceptional cases. It is more difficult to conceive of standard form orders for
suppression of evidence.
s
tandard form orders might also assist with a related issue in the way orders for
7.25
name suppression are often framed. s
ection 140(1) currently provides that a
court may make an order prohibiting the publication of the name, address or
occupation of the accused or convicted person, or of any particulars likely to lead
to their identification. The language of the section is more specific in this regard
than its predecessor, section 46 of the Criminal Justice a
ct 1954, which gave the
court a discretion to prohibit the publication of the personfs name, and made it
an offence to publish the name or any name or particulars likely to lead to their
identification.u
nder the 1985 legislation the judge can if he or she thinks fit
specifically prohibit the publication of identifying particulars, but orders are
often made which inadvertently only suppress the name. In that case it is an
offence to publish the name or gto evade or attempt to evade the orderh.170
It is unclear what this means.
The way the current provision is framed can result in the identification of the
7.26
accused. For example, where an accused is both a former prominent sportsman
and a prominent television presenter, if one media outlet describes him in one
of those ways and another in the other, it does not take long to put two and two
together. One answer to this issue is to say judges should do more to require that
certain particulars are not published, but another option would be to return to
the 1954 statutory formulation, or to have a standard form order which
suppresses both names and identifying particulars as a matter o
Do you support the idea of a register of suppression orders?
Q47
Who should be able to access such a register? Should it be open to
Q48
public search?
Should any such register be available electronically?
Q49
If a national register is not practicable, do you have any suggestions for
Q50
other methods by which information about suppression orders might
be disseminated?
170 Criminal Justice
a
ct 1985, s 140(5).
55
Suppressing Names and Evidence
