Tapu Misa: Sense of perspective needed in name suppression debate

On the rare occasions when someone has recognised me from the column, usually at times I've least wanted the attention, it's always felt oddly disconcerting.

I guess you could say that I shouldn't have chosen this line of work if complete anonymity was my preferred state, but I comfort myself that it could have been much worse.

I could have worked in television or been a Silver Fern or married an All Black and given up any hope at all of going to the supermarket wearing my slippers and my best uncombed look.

Of course, it goes without saying that famous people are fair game in the loss of privacy stakes, especially when they're of the attention-seeking variety, craving the spotlight one minute and whining about their need for seclusion the next.

Which is why it's so difficult to muster any real sympathy for the plight of hotel heiress, reality TV star and all-round party girl Paris Hilton, who is feeling just a little over-exposed these days.

Having had a not-too-wholesome videotape of herself posted on internet porn sites, Hilton now finds that her life is once again an open book, or at least a hacked mobile phone, as the details of her entire star-studded contact list plus topless photos of herself have been splashed on the web for the entertainment of the online masses.

Indeed, privacy has become a lot more problematic since United States Supreme Court justices Warren and Brandeis defined it back in 1890 as the right to be left alone. We might all agree with the definition, but most of us don't regard it as a right that should be conferred equally to all and sundry.

A 1997 British Broadcasting Commission survey found, for example, that the degree of privacy accorded an individual tended to depend on their perceived social and moral position.

Criminals were deemed to have the least right to privacy, members of the public the greatest, while those in public positions fell somewhere in between. That's probably the same here, too, though we're by no means consistent, as the reaction to a couple of name suppression cases shows.

Last year, a judge granted permanent name suppression to a Nelson father who was found not guilty of murder and manslaughter charges by a sympathetic jury, despite a videotaped confession in which he admitted to ending the life of his severely disabled baby daughter.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of that decision, it was soon clear there was no public appetite to know the identity of the man and his family. In fact, after a Holmes poll found an overwhelming majority of people didn't want the identities of the man and his family to be made public, TVNZ changed its mind about appealing against the suppression order.

But a couple of weeks ago, when an All Black was granted permanent name suppression for assault, which the judge described as "at the lower end of the scale", there was little sympathy. He was a coward, he should step forward, it was sending the wrong message. The public had a right to know. Important principles were at stake.

As in Britain, we in the media are fond of invoking freedom of the press and public interest as a justification for naming individuals. Sure, it's important to guard against even the suggestion that our courts might favour the rich and powerful.

But on the other hand, demanding that someone be named simply because he is an All Black goes against the whole idea of treating people as individuals and considering their cases on their merits.

As always, a sense of proportion is necessary. Had he been an ordinary citizen, the case would have passed without notice, and he and his wife could have put the whole sorry affair behind them. But it's precisely because he is an All Black that the attention and opprobrium would have been out of all proportion to the crime.

Even an All Black deserves to be seen not as an over-paid professional sportsman whose behaviour can never be less than blameless but as an individual who, in the heat of an argument with his pregnant wife, went a little too far and now regrets it.

His wife has forgiven him and, understandably, wants no publicity. Should she and their children have to suffer invasion of their privacy to satisfy public curiosity?

About the same time that the All Black's name suppression was exercising so many chatrooms, a decision by an English High Court judge granting life-long anonymity to the former girlfriend of the convicted killer Ian Huntley was attracting a similar level of public and media approval in Britain. Which is to say, not much.

A judge had ruled that Maxine Carr, a 27-year-old former classroom assistant who had served 21 months in jail for providing an alibi for the murderer of two Soham schoolgirls in August 2003, will have her new identity and whereabouts kept secret to protect life and limb as well as her psychological health.

At her court appearance, protesters shouted abuse and hurled eggs at the police van that carried her. There have been at least six incidents in which people mistaken for Carr have been assaulted and abused.

The public over-reaction to Carr has prompted at least one commentator to hope that the media and the public get some perspective and let her get on with her life unmolested.

We need to develop the same sense of perspective towards the unnamed All Black.