Murray and Murray (No 4)

In the matter of *Murray and Murray (No 4)*, Justice Watts of the Family Court of Australia considered an application for suppression orders. The application was brought by the Commissioner for Police, who asserted that the publication of evidence and findings from property settlement proceedings was necessary to prevent prejudice to a criminal trial involving a third party mentioned in the proceedings. The court was asked to determine whether further anonymisation of the judgments would suffice or if the entire judgments should be suppressed.

The central legal issue before the court was the balance between the public interest in the open publication of court judgments and the need to protect the integrity of a criminal trial. Specifically, the court had to consider the extent to which anonymisation of the judgments and evidence would be sufficient to mitigate any potential prejudice to the criminal proceedings, and whether a complete suppression of publication was warranted.

Justice Watts made an interim suppression order in relation to specific orders and reasons for judgment delivered on 11 October 2019 and 18 November 2019. A further suppression order was made concerning evidence given during the proceedings, with specific provisos allowing the parties to share relevant orders and evidence with financial institutions, real estate agents, and legal advisors for the purpose of implementing orders or conducting appeals. The court also requested its Publication Officer to anonymise the orders and reasons for judgment and to provide them to the Commissioner for Police. The Commissioner was given seven days to file further evidence addressing why anonymisation might not be sufficient and whether full suppression was necessary. The matter was adjourned for further hearing.