Experienced business reporter Jenny Ruth has been ejected from a tribunal hearing into a long-running dispute involving Wellington Pride festival organisers and a trans-exclusionary group.
An experienced journalist is barred from a tribunal hearing into a long-running dispute involving Wellington’s Pride festival organisers and a lesbian group. Other media have been allowed to cover the case. What’s going on?
One of New Zealand’s most experienced business journalists says she feels “insulted and belittled” after being ejected from a tribunal hearing for publishing details of a case that the media are freely allowed to cover.
The Human Rights Review Tribunal this week excluded Jenny Ruth from a hearing involving a dispute between Wellington Pride Festival organisers and a trans-exclusionary lesbian group, accusing her of “wilfully and without lawful excuse” disobeying a tribunal order.
The tribunal hearing centres on a decision by Wellington Pride to cancel a stall that Lesbian Action for Visibility Aotearoa (Lava) had planned to have at a Pride gala event in 2021. Pride was unhappy about Lava’s anti-trans views.
The tribunal ejected Ruth from the hearing after she had published an online article about the case on her Substack platform on Wednesday, in which she quoted the expert testimony of a witness for Wellington Pride.
Ruth is an unapologetic advocate for women’s rights and believes she has been barred from covering the hearing because of comments she had made in the past that “make it clear I’m not sympathetic to trans ideology”.
The tribunal says it is happy for accredited media to cover the case, but it asserts that Ruth is not accredited.
It has cited the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, which defines a media representative as someone subject to - or employed by an organisation that is subject to - the Broadcasting Standards Authority or Media Council.
Ruth is an independent journalist who publishes articles on her subscriber-supported Substack platform. She is not a member of the Media Council or BSA.
One legal source questioned the tribunal’s decision and positioning, citing the same Act which gives courts the discretion to allow other media to cover cases. “She is not some random blogger,” the source said, saying that same clause allowed the likes of foreign media companies to cover cases in New Zealand.
The tribunal had earlier issued a suppression order on September 18 - later confirmed on October 3 - banning all non-accredited media from covering the case until closing submissions started, amid concerns about social media posts and comments from a pro-women’s group and individuals that Wellington Pride’s lawyers believed were intimidating to witnesses.
“Wellington Pride submits the continuation of the interim non-publication order is necessary and desirable to preserve the defendant’s rights to a fair hearing and to uphold the proper administration of justice,” the tribunal said on October 3.
“It is submitted that the posts demonstrate online harassment and attacks which constitute witness intimidation, sending a message that other witnesses who support Wellington Pride may be subjected to the same treatment.”
The suppression order was posted to the door of the tribunal hearing room, and outlined further restrictions - the public could not take notes in the public gallery, use their cellphones or “publish any report of this proceeding”.
Accredited media, on the other hand, have been free to cover the proceedings.
Ruth is one of New Zealand’s most experienced business journalists - she has worked for the NZ Herald, NBR and BusinessDesk in a career spanning more than 40 years.
Ruth believes she has every right to cover the case as a journalist. She published the story on Wednesday on her Substack page, making it freely accessible to the public.
She quoted the Pride festival witness, a transgender man who was born a woman, as “she”.
“To me, I’m sticking to the facts - that’s what a journalist’s job is about,” Ruth told the Herald.
In an earlier story, a week earlier, she wrote of the case: “The action before the tribunal was brought by two members of Lesbian Action for Visibility Aotearoa (Lava), Hillary Oxley and Margaret Curnow, against Wellington Pride Festival Incorporated after their booking for a stall at an Out in the City event in March 2021 was cancelled, essentially because Lava doesn’t accept that lesbians can have penises.
“That’s right: lesbians no longer have an automatic right of presence at Pride events, which are meant to celebrate the rights of lesbians and gay men, a cause that culminated in marriage equality.”
The Human Rights Review Tribunal issued a “minute ... regarding contempt of court” about Ruth this week.
It stated she was not an accredited media representative and that it had asked her to move last Tuesday from the press bench to the public gallery, where she could watch proceedings but not report on them.
The next day, Ruth - who has sought legal advice and does not accept she is not an accredited journalist - published a report on the proceedings and what had unfolded at the tribunal.
Tribunal chairwoman Sarah Eyre wrote in her minute that a lawyer for Wellington Pride had alerted her to the article on Wednesday.
Following an adjournment, “the chairperson excluded Ms Ruth from the hearing for the rest of the day in accordance with ... the Contempt of Court Act 2019.
“Ms Ruth was excluded as she had wilfully and without lawful excuse disobeyed the tribunal’s order dated 3 October 2025.”
Eyre wrote:
Asked whether the tribunal was considering any further action in the matter, a Justice Ministry spokeswoman told the Herald that it had no further comment.
On LinkedIn, Ruth wrote: “It’s a very long time since I was so professionally insulted and belittled. The way I chose to handle it could lead to me being charged with contempt of court. Should that happen, I will vigorously defend myself.”
She reiterated that position in an interview with the Herald, and on her Substack page.
“I contend that HRRT was wrong in that decision [to exclude her] because it inappropriately applied a legal provision relating to criminal proceedings to a civil proceeding.
“It was also wrong to rule in the absence of any evidence of my career as a journalist.
“I was deeply offended by their hasty dismissal of my right to sit on the press bench.”
The case raises interesting questions over the definition of a journalist in the modern-day media landscape.
With most mainstream media organisations cutting staff - or in the case of Newshub, an entire newsroom - over the past two years, a good number of journalists have branched off to launch their own businesses or platforms as freelancers or independent reporters.
Ruth is now one of many individual journalists and writers plying their trade independently - she has been publishing articles and columns on Substack since August 2023 and has almost 2000 subscribers to date.
Other notable New Zealand journalists such as Bernard Hickey, Dylan Cleaver and - until recently - David Farrier have also been using Substack. Farrier has since moved to the open-source Ghost platform.
“I have sought legal advice on the meaning of ‘accredited’,” wrote Ruth.
“My understanding is that it has a general and vernacular meaning that would extend to me because of my professional standing. Blogger Cam Slater was held by the High Court in 2014 to be within a definition with a comparable purpose.
“Since I am a recognised journalist of more than 40 years’ experience, including much court reporting, and owning a paid subscriber publication, I believe the HRRT order cannot prevent me from reporting its proceedings.”
Ruth also pointed out that the actual law refers to media organisations having to be affiliated to the BSA or “Press Council”.
The Press Council was renamed the Media Council in 2018.
The Justice Ministry referred the Herald to the Courts of NZ website, which contains the definition of ‘accredited media’: “To meet the CPA 2011 definition of a ‘member of the media’, your media organisation must be subject to a code of ethics and the complaints procedure of the Broadcasting Standards Authority or the Media Council.”
The Pride v Lava case next moves to closing submissions - at which point coverage restrictions will lift for everyone, including non-accredited media.
“The principles of sub judice remain relevant during and after the closing submissions until the tribunal decision is issued, with the most relevant point being that it is for the tribunal to determine the claim, it is not to be determined by social media or public consensus,” the tribunal said.
“In deciding not to extend the order to the end of the closing submissions, the tribunal has weighed up the need to protect the proper administration of justice with the right to freedom of expression and the principle of open justice. Once the evidence has been given, the focus appropriately shifts to the legal principles and submissions being presented in the hearing.”
There have previously been news stories on the dispute between Wellington Pride and Lava, but little coverage of the actual hearing in recent weeks.
“Representatives from a trans-exclusionary lesbian group have taken legal action against the Wellington Pride Festival after it refused to let the organisation hold a stall at its 2021 gala,” reported the Herald’s Katie Harris in 2024.
“Wellington Pride Festival (WPF) board co-chair Tasmin Prichard said they chose not to allow the stand after the community alerted them to Lesbian Action for Visibility Aotearoa’s (Lava) anti-trans views.
“Prichard said the festival and Lava had very different views on trans people.”
The Spinoff wrote about the tribunal hearing last month, reporting that the case “seeks to answer whether barring an organisation based on transphobic views impedes on human rights”.
“In the process, the hearing contends with the bigger issue the courts are slowly addressing: how are trans lives examined in the courtroom, and how do our laws interpret sex and gender identity? And, within the rainbow community itself, how much protection should be afforded to trans-exclusionary views?”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME, including managing editor, NZ Herald editor and Herald on Sunday editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.