ABSTRACT
During the 1990s, there has been a stream of decisions on the power of the courts, as part of their overall abuse of process jurisdiction, to stay criminal proceedings on the grounds of prejudicial pre-trial publicity. The problems posed by the need to weigh free speech against the duty to ensure fair trials have arisen not only in England but also in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The jurisdiction of the trial judge started on arraignment, responsibility being restricted to matters in the courtroom and thereby excluding any role in pre-trial events. In the realm of pretrial publicity, and in the face of a sensation-hungry media, judges are beginning to grapple with the problems of bias against defendants, at least when artificially generated by media coverage. The task of ensuring that the defendant did not suffer "undue" prejudice from media reportage and comment has fallen to the state itself, in the personage of the law officers.
