Corrections wins bid to prevent interview
The Department of Corrections has successfully won its bid to prevent a former Stuff journalist from interviewing convicted murderer, sex offender and former fugitive Phillip John Smith.
Corrections appealed against a High Court justice’s decision ordering it to reconsider the decision to limit Smith to an interview conducted by written correspondence.
However, Smith argued that was against his right to freedom of expression.
The Court of Appeal released its decision yesterday, ruling in Corrections’ favour.
At the hearing early in December, Smith appeared by video link from prison to argue his own case for the interview request to be reconsidered.
Smith’s life imprisonment was imposed in 1996. He has been considered for parole several times since 2009, but so far parole has been declined.
Smith’s case to be released was harmed when he absconded while on leave from prison in 2014, and reached Brazil before being recaptured and returned to New Zealand.
The Department of Corrections refused the request of Stuff journalist Harrison Christian to interview Smith in November, 2017.
Christian wanted to interview Smith about his ‘‘legal claim that his human rights are being breached by keeping him in the high security wing of the prison’’.
Smith’s application to review that decision resulted in Corrections agreeing to reconsider it. Christian told Corrections the topics he wanted to talk to Smith about, and sought permission for photographs.
Again the request was declined. Victims of Smith’s crimes were strongly opposed to an interview and the Corrections decision-maker thought it could raise Smith’s profile in the prison and increase the risk to Smith’s personal safety.
But Smith could still communicate with the journalist in writing, Corrections said.
In yesterday’s judgment, the Court of Appeal said Corrections was entitled to conclude that there were no conditions that would ‘‘adequately address the concerns’’ of victims. In the circumstances, the refusal to approve the interview was not a disproportionate limit on Smith’s right to freedom of expression.