A Human Rights Tribunal afraid of Human Rights: FSU slams ban on Helen Joyce

04 November 2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A Human Rights Tribunal afraid of Human Rights: FSU slams ban on Helen Joyce

The Free Speech Union demands Minister of Justice step in after the Human Rights Review Tribunal told world-renowned journalist Helen Joyce that she will be barred from taking notes or sitting with the media during the Wellington Pride Festival Incorporated vs. Lesbian Action for Visibility Aotearoa (LAVA) case hearing tomorrow, referring to the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, a law written for criminal trials, says Jillaine Heather, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union.

“You couldn’t make this up. Criminal procedure is being invoked to keep an international women’s rights reporter out of the room in a civil human rights hearing. This is either bureaucratic arrogance or utter incompetence.

“The absurdity doesn’t end there. The email informing Joyce of her exclusion came not from the Tribunal itself, but from ‘the media team at the Ministry of Justice’.

“So much for judicial independence. The very department the Tribunal is supposed to be independent from is now acting as its spokesperson. When the Ministry’s comms people are deciding who can report on a Tribunal hearing, there is no open justice. You have state-managed optics.”

Irish author and journalist Helen Joyce, currently on tour with the Free Speech Union, says, “In my 17 years at The Economist, I’ve covered courts, tribunals, and parliaments around the world, and I’ve never encountered anything like this. The New Zealand Human Rights Review Tribunal seems frightened of scrutiny. A body charged with defending human rights should stand up for the principle of open justice, which is crucial to a functioning democracy, rather than hiding behind bureaucracy to close reporting down.”

“This farce follows an earlier episode of bureaucratic attempts to create silence around this case,” says Heather. “Jenny Ruth, one of New Zealand’s most experienced independent journalists, was ejected from an earlier hearing after writing a publicly available article quoting sworn witness testimony. 

“The Tribunal claimed that Ruth had ‘wilfully and without lawful excuse’ disobeyed a non-publication order and declared her not an ‘accredited media representative’ under the same narrow definition now being used to exclude Helen Joyce. Criminal law was cited in relation to her reporting also.”

Journalist Jenny Ruth says, “I contend that HRRT was wrong in that decision because it inappropriately applied a legal provision relating to criminal proceedings to a civil proceeding. I was deeply offended by their hasty dismissal of my right to sit on the press bench.” 

“The Free Speech Union views Ruth’s exclusion as further proof that the Tribunal is deploying flimsy procedural pretexts based on criminal-law frameworks unsuited to its civil human-rights role to silence scrutiny and deter independent journalism,” says Heather.

“The Free Speech Union is calling for immediate intervention by Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith, noting that these are his officials. This is not an operational matter. This is a constitutional embarrassment. 

“A Human Rights Review Tribunal, steered by the Ministry of Justice’s PR department, invoking irrelevant criminal law to silence a journalist of international standing; it’s beyond parody. The Minister must restore some sanity and remind his officials that open justice is not optional.”