A suppression order protected the Pell verdict from being known for months.Credit:Justin McManus
It was revealed on Tuesday thatGeorge Pell had been convicted of child sex abuse offences, a conviction handed down in the County Court in December last year,but a suppression order prevented that from being reported until a second matter involving Pell had been concluded. That second matter was dropped on Tuesday and thus Pell's initial conviction could be reported.
However many media outlets around the world published news of Pell's conviction in Decemberwhile Australian media outlets were furious at being gagged as the verdict could be widely read on social media.
"It’s virtually impossible to quarantine juries from social media from the internet,"Mr Moses told ABC's Radio National.
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"We need to have legislation that bears in mind this fundamental truth. Otherwise,in effect,orders that are made by courts that don’t take that into account in effect place persons at risk of breaching orders and we need to be careful that legislation is fit for purpose.
"We need to look to why are we granting suppression orders in cases. It has to be necessary to prevent prejudice to the proper administration of justice and in many cases that can be done by giving a direction to a jury that they are to put out of their mind the fact that somebody has previously offended and focus on whether or not the individual is guilty of the offence they’ve been charged with.
"We also have contempt laws that prohibit the media from publishing material that has a real tendency to prejudice the conduct of a trial."