Should Media Ban be allowed?
- Thread starter red
- Start date
Unfortunately, right or wrong, you don't have a choice. It's part of living in a Democracy. She has rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The same rights every Canadian has. I'm not willing to give up those rights because of this scum.
Guy
Guy
No one else gets a media ban to protect their privacy unless they are underage or their identity would compromise the identity of a child.
That being said, I wish the media would back off - but that won't happen because the public (read you and me) is fueling them.
That being said, I wish the media would back off - but that won't happen because the public (read you and me) is fueling them.
Well said.Truncador said:
I'm not in favour of capital punishment, but the idea that she should receive special rights due to the obscene nature of her crimes (and her apparent lack of remorse) is offensive.
Like others, though, I'm sick of the almost pornographic treatment that the media give this woman.
Face it. The government was so hell bent on finding Paul guilty. That they made a deal with someone just as sick or sicker then he is. Only then they were seeing her as a less then will participant in the brutal murders. As it often happens new evidence surfaced right after the deal was srtuck. Show her as a more then willing killer. As i recall the court placed a gag order on the press about her, during the trial. And I expect she will get an order of protection now. After all she was a victum.
http://sympaticomsn.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1120049679479_92?hub=topstories
Judge to decide on Homolka injunction request
CTV.ca News Staff
Anticipating her imminent release, Canada's most notorious female criminal is seeking a sweeping court injunction to silence discussion of her life outside of prison.
Convicted in the early 1990s of manslaughter in the sex slayings of teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, Karla Homolka is at the end of her 12-year sentence.
With her release expected within days, Homolka's legal aid lawyers have petitioned a Quebec Superior Court to impose a ban that would prevent the media from photographing or contacting her.
Reporting from outside the Montreal courthouse, CTV national affairs correspondent Lisa LaFlamme says lawyers, media and curious onlookers are now awaiting the judge's decision.
"It is up to the judge now, to decide if he is going to impose this ban, or perhaps impose a temporary injunction," she told CTV Newsnet.
"It's really difficult to say how long it's going to take the judge. It could be five minutes or it could be five hours. We really have no idea because this case really is unprecedented."
The details of Homolka's case were outlined in an affidavit released on Tuesday.
In it, Homolka claims that written and verbal threats, including Internet death pools, have her living in constant fear of a vengeful public and the media that informs it.
"I, Karla Teale," she writes under her new legal name, "have been living in a climate of hate and vengeance for the last 12 years."
"Given the events that happened during my incarceration and the interest surrounding my release, I am convinced that some individuals wish to render a public service by assassinating me."
In order to live her post-prison life as anonymously as possible, she is seeking a wide-ranging injunction that would prevent media from trying to obtain any information about her, including her address, telephone number, her movements and relationships.
It would also cover any such information published online.
The intention, according to the motion, is to protect her "basic rights under the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Quebec Civil Code."
"As far as I know, nothing has been done to safeguard my security after my release from prison, and the thought of being relentlessly pursued, hunted down and followed when I won't have any protection makes me fear for my life," Homolka wrote in the accompanying affidavit.
Mark Banty, who will argue against the motion on behalf of several media outlets on Wednesday, believes the request is far too broad.
"The order aims not only at the media, but the public in general," he told Canada AM in an interview from Montreal.
"Any member of the public who is aware of the order would be forbidden from discussing her case or inquiring about her in any way."
That, Banty said, simply isn't justified.
"If she requires protection, then she should address herself to police or to the correctional services. It doesn't mean that she's entitled to a sweeping publication ban."
Another of the proposed ban's major shortcomings, Banty added, is that it would be valid only in Canada.
"The American media would be free to discuss her case... and that inevitably would seep into Canada. Therefore any order that she seeks, I think, would be useless."
But prisoner's rights activist Jean-Claude Bernheim still sees merit in such a ban, because he believes intense media coverage could drive Homolka underground -- further frustrating the public.
"If the spotlight is on her she could be more dangerous than if she's in a private situation," Bernheim told CTV News.
Homolka's father, Karel, has said his daughter plans to settle somewhere in the Montreal area.
Homolka reportedly hopes that by living in Quebec, where her case received less intense coverage and where experts say attitudes towards convicted criminals are softer, she might be able to disappear from the public view and avoid harassment.
Judge to decide on Homolka injunction request
CTV.ca News Staff
Anticipating her imminent release, Canada's most notorious female criminal is seeking a sweeping court injunction to silence discussion of her life outside of prison.
Convicted in the early 1990s of manslaughter in the sex slayings of teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, Karla Homolka is at the end of her 12-year sentence.
With her release expected within days, Homolka's legal aid lawyers have petitioned a Quebec Superior Court to impose a ban that would prevent the media from photographing or contacting her.
Reporting from outside the Montreal courthouse, CTV national affairs correspondent Lisa LaFlamme says lawyers, media and curious onlookers are now awaiting the judge's decision.
"It is up to the judge now, to decide if he is going to impose this ban, or perhaps impose a temporary injunction," she told CTV Newsnet.
"It's really difficult to say how long it's going to take the judge. It could be five minutes or it could be five hours. We really have no idea because this case really is unprecedented."
The details of Homolka's case were outlined in an affidavit released on Tuesday.
In it, Homolka claims that written and verbal threats, including Internet death pools, have her living in constant fear of a vengeful public and the media that informs it.
"I, Karla Teale," she writes under her new legal name, "have been living in a climate of hate and vengeance for the last 12 years."
"Given the events that happened during my incarceration and the interest surrounding my release, I am convinced that some individuals wish to render a public service by assassinating me."
In order to live her post-prison life as anonymously as possible, she is seeking a wide-ranging injunction that would prevent media from trying to obtain any information about her, including her address, telephone number, her movements and relationships.
It would also cover any such information published online.
The intention, according to the motion, is to protect her "basic rights under the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Quebec Civil Code."
"As far as I know, nothing has been done to safeguard my security after my release from prison, and the thought of being relentlessly pursued, hunted down and followed when I won't have any protection makes me fear for my life," Homolka wrote in the accompanying affidavit.
Mark Banty, who will argue against the motion on behalf of several media outlets on Wednesday, believes the request is far too broad.
"The order aims not only at the media, but the public in general," he told Canada AM in an interview from Montreal.
"Any member of the public who is aware of the order would be forbidden from discussing her case or inquiring about her in any way."
That, Banty said, simply isn't justified.
"If she requires protection, then she should address herself to police or to the correctional services. It doesn't mean that she's entitled to a sweeping publication ban."
Another of the proposed ban's major shortcomings, Banty added, is that it would be valid only in Canada.
"The American media would be free to discuss her case... and that inevitably would seep into Canada. Therefore any order that she seeks, I think, would be useless."
But prisoner's rights activist Jean-Claude Bernheim still sees merit in such a ban, because he believes intense media coverage could drive Homolka underground -- further frustrating the public.
"If the spotlight is on her she could be more dangerous than if she's in a private situation," Bernheim told CTV News.
Homolka's father, Karel, has said his daughter plans to settle somewhere in the Montreal area.
Homolka reportedly hopes that by living in Quebec, where her case received less intense coverage and where experts say attitudes towards convicted criminals are softer, she might be able to disappear from the public view and avoid harassment.
Honestly this request makes me gag...
The public has a right to know where she is just like we have a right to know when dangerous offenders or pedophiles are released from prison.
It's democratic to protect the safety of the majority - no?
So are we supposed to feel sorry that poor Karla has been 'living in a climate of hate and vengeance"?
The public has a right to know where she is just like we have a right to know when dangerous offenders or pedophiles are released from prison.
It's democratic to protect the safety of the majority - no?
