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Victoria\u2019s top law officer says she is working to balance the need for transparency in the courts with the right to a fair trial, after a report warned of a \u201ccrisis\u201d in open justice.<\/p>\n
But a former Supreme Court judge has defended the system, saying it is psychiatrists providing evidence for mental health suppression orders who pose the biggest threat to transparency, and that while some judges are \u201cdills\u201d, they are outliers in the profession.<\/p>\n
![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/87b1756d7ef8cff0b45409159ff340c4794f5237.jpeg\")
Former Supreme Court judge Betty King, KC. Luis Enrique Ascui<\/p>\n
The Age reported on Tuesday<\/a> that a Monash University study, commissioned by the Melbourne Press Club, judged Victoria\u2019s court system to be the least transparent in Australia.<\/p>\n It warned the prolific use of suppression orders had produced a crisis in court reporting, and pressed for an overhaul of the state\u2019s Open Courts Act.<\/p>\n Speaking to reporters, Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny side-stepped questions about whether the legislation that was introduced 13 years ago needed to be reviewed.<\/p>\n But she repeatedly said that Victoria needed to strike the right balance \u201cbetween an open court system and a person\u2019s right to a fair trial\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will continue work to make sure that that balance is struck,\u201d Kilkenny said.<\/p>\n She pointed to last week\u2019s announcement that \u201cgood character\u201d references would be banned in the state.<\/a> Good character references are used during the sentencing process to reduce criminals\u2019 jail time.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to make sure that balance is right, and we need to make sure also, as we have clearly demonstrated, that we listen to voices of victim-survivors, and we will continue to do that work,\u201d Kilkenny said.<\/p>\n Chief Magistrate Lisa Hannan, County Court Chief Judge Amanda Chambers and Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Niall all declined to contribute to the research, and no current judge accepted an invitation to speak at a Melbourne Press Club event, where the report was formally launched on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n Speaking at the event alongside The Age editor Patrick Elligett and Herald Sun editor Sam Weir, former Supreme Court justice Betty King, KC, suggested psychiatrists posed the greatest threat to courts\u2019 transparency, as they wrote untested psychiatric reports, which ultimately led to suppression orders.<\/p>\n King suggested some psychiatrists abused the system, and their reports \u2013 along with the legislation that led to mental health-based suppression orders \u2013 should be tested in court.<\/p>\n \u201cThey write compelling reports, saying, \u2018I am treating this person\u2019 … now, you\u2019ve got that [psychiatric] report in front of you, and no one\u2019s contesting it,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, what do you do as a judge or a magistrate?<\/p>\n \u201cThe most worrying thing we\u2019ve got to face at the moment is this mental health suppression order. I do think it\u2019s obviously wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a misinterpretation, and we really need to start looking at the psychiatric reports.\u201d<\/p>\n The Monash study was based largely on interviews with working journalists, and called for urgent steps to repair what researchers found to be fractured relationship between judges and journalists who report from their courts.<\/p>\n King said she was surprised by the findings, and most judges had a lot of respect for journalists. \u201cI really would have thought it\u2019s more outliers. It\u2019s like every profession, you\u2019ve got some dills,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cWhat you\u2019ve got to do is remember there\u2019s media liaison officers in all of the courts, and they should be the people that if you\u2019re having problems, you go to them.\u201d<\/p>\n King defended the broader use of suppression orders as necessary to ensure the fairness of the justice system, and avoid mistrials.<\/p>\n The former Supreme Court judge has jokingly referred to herself as the \u201cQueen of suppression orders\u201d, and famously presided over the trial<\/a> of slain underworld boss Carl Williams.<\/p>\n \u201cThis concept that we\u2019re trying to hide everything \u2013 we\u2019re not. It\u2019s about trying to ensure that people get a fair trial, and one of the ways we do that is by occasionally a suppression order,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no point getting a trial that\u2019s partway through and then aborted because something comes up that is really so adverse that a jury can\u2019t put it aside.\u201d<\/p>\n All decisions made by a magistrate or judge were capable of being reviewed by different levels of the judiciary, so the idea of an external reviewer or commissioner was futile, she suggested.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s get real.\u201d<\/p>\n Courts Council chair Chief Justice Richard Niall earlier said he was disappointed by the report, which did not reflect the scope of \u201cpositive engagement with media by the courts across Victoria\u201d.<\/p>\n It appeared to make no attempt to engage with the legal profession, or consult them about why they applied for suppression orders, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt contains a number of misleading claims, selective citations and suppression order data which has been debunked as incomplete and misleading,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n The Open Courts Act was last reviewed in 2018 by retired Supreme Court justice Frank Vincent who found the number of suppression orders issued had not significantly decreased since the law came into force. He concluded that \u201cmore attention needs to be given to the education of judges\u201d about how and when to issue them.<\/p>\n Get the day\u2019s breaking news, entertainment ideas and a long read to enjoy. Sign up to receive our Evening Edition newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Attorney-General](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/b791171bfba6107a11a53283f61b06990e3f5c3b.jpeg\")
Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny.Eamon Gallagher<\/p>\n![\"Stewart](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/077f887a1a47d5f19e7a8c4d0039d1bcfdd8d9db.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Chip](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/c933d487c0923e425b125b59fa4140f217688025.png\")
Chip Le Grand<\/a> leads our state politics reporting team. He previously served as the paper\u2019s chief reporter and is a journalist of 30 years\u2019 experience.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":["post-511752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}