Open justice sits at the foundation of any functioning democracy. When courts close their doors, when names are hidden and proceedings go unreported, citizens lose the ability to know what is being done in their name. In Victoria, that foundation is showing serious cracks.
A new report commissioned by the Melbourne Press Club and conducted by researchers at Monash University has put hard numbers to what many journalists have long suspected. In 2023, Victorian courts issued 521 suppression orders, representing 47 per cent of the 1,113 made nationally, exceeding the combined total of South Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia, and the ACT. To put that in context: there were 259 suppression orders granted in Victoria in 2012. The number has doubled in a little over a decade.
Suppression orders restrict the media from publishing certain details, and in some cases entire proceedings, and are intended to be used only under defined legal conditions. In Victoria, suppression orders are governed by the Open Courts Act 2013, which permits them only in limited circumstances, such as protecting an accused person's right to a fair trial, safeguarding national security, or protecting victims and witnesses. The law was designed as a safeguard, not a default. According to the researchers, it has become precisely that.
All 12 senior journalists interviewed for the study, commissioned by the Melbourne Press Club, said Victorian courts routinely breached the Open Courts Act "with impunity". The report's authors, Alicia McMillan and Johan Lidberg of Monash University, did not mince words. "Based on the review of previous studies and the interviews in this project, we conclude that public interest journalism in Victoria is at a crisis point," they wrote, adding: "This is particularly true for court reporting in the state."
Particularly striking is the concern about suppression orders granted on mental health grounds. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a former judge has described mental health suppression orders as the court system's biggest worry, declaring plainly: "It's wrong." Victoria's Attorney-General, Sonya Kilkenny, says the state is working to balance transparency with fairness in how it handles such matters. That is a carefully worded position, and it falls well short of committing to reform.
One researcher on the study noted that journalists "repeatedly raised concerns about how suppression orders are applied", with one observation being that "those entering the court with financial resources are more likely to secure a suppression order to keep their name out of the media." That is a pointed inequality: the ability to buy anonymity in a system that is supposed to be blind to wealth.
Melbourne Press Club president Michael Bachelard put it directly: "Anyone who has worked in journalism in Melbourne will know that secrecy, suppression and spin have overtaken openness and disclosure across many of our institutions."
The case for suppression orders is not without merit, and it deserves to be heard fairly. Protecting genuine witnesses from violence, shielding children from identification, and preserving the integrity of complex trials are all legitimate purposes. Researcher McMillan acknowledged that suppression orders remain necessary in some circumstances, citing Melbourne's gangland war, noting: "If people were named in the press, their lives would be in jeopardy." No reasonable person argues otherwise.
The Victorian Courts Council pushed back, stating: "We are not of the view that the number of suppression orders being issued by Victorian courts is inappropriate or excessive. No evidence has been provided to suggest that the courts are not applying the criteria appropriately." The Courts Council described the Melbourne Press Club and Monash University report as selective and not reflective of broader court-media engagement. It is worth noting, too, that the study's authors conceded it was limited because no chief judges in Victoria's main courts agreed to be interviewed.
Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny would not commit to initiating a review of the Open Courts Act, and described the data within the report as "at best questionable", as jurisdictions reported the issuing of suppression orders differently. That is a defensible statistical point. But it does not explain away a doubling of orders in a decade, nor does it address the specific concern about mental health grounds being used to shield defendants, particularly those with the means to pursue them.
Shadow Attorney-General James Newbury described the figures as "stark" and suggested suppression orders were being "misused".
The study's 10 recommendations included a review of aspects of the Open Courts Act, allowing accredited journalists to record court proceedings by default, and freedom of information reforms. These are measured proposals, not radical ones. The principle that open justice is fundamental to public confidence in the courts is not a media industry interest; it is a democratic one. When communities cannot see justice being done, they lose faith that it is being done at all.
Victoria faces a genuine tension here. The impulse to protect vulnerable people, including those with mental illness, from the harsh glare of publicity is not wrong in itself. The question is whether that protection has drifted from a carefully applied exception into a broad tool available to those with enough money and motivation to seek it. The evidence, at least as it stands, points firmly in that direction. Reasonable people can weigh the competing values differently, but the case for a proper, independent review of how the Open Courts Act is working is now very difficult to dismiss.