New Zealand has criminal laws governing what can and can't be said when it comes to suicide, or suspected suicide.

As part of the ongoing discussion on the whether we need to be more open when discussing suicide in New Zealand, lawyer Graeme Edgeler questions the latest approach.

OPINION: On 3 August 2015, the Auckland District Commander of the New Zealand Police held a media conference. He said that the evening before, police had shot and killed someone in a central city park in Auckland, after that man had declared he had a gun, and was about to use it.

Police shooting deaths are mercifully rare in New Zealand, so the death, and the information police released, were major news. They shouldn't have been.

POLICE The Coroner allowed limited reports of David Cerven's death to be lawfully published, including that that there was reasonable cause to believe the death was technically self-inflicted.

I believe the news coverage, and the police press conference, were illegal. Neither police, nor any media reporting the story, asked the permission of the Coroner to release details of the death.

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The Coroner ruled that permission was needed: no details can be released about any death that might be considered to be a suicide, without the agreement of a coroner.

Mental Health Foundation Former chief coroner Neil MacLean talks about reporting on suicide in New Zealand.

Six weeks after the shooting, the Coroner allowed limited reports of the death to be lawfully published, including a finding that the deceased was unarmed, and that there was reasonable cause to believe the death was technically self-inflicted, although no final finding has been made.

It's a law a lot of people overlook or ignore at least some of the time – including the police. It covers not only news reports, but also Facebook tributes, and tweets. I sought permission to tweet information that Police had released at their media conference, and permission was refused.

It took six weeks and a High Court review to get the coroner to change her mind. Sometimes it takes six months. And people who are posting about their grief on Facebook tend not to ask. If everyone actually followed the law, Coroners would spend their days doing little more than approving or rejecting Facebook comments.

That the system doesn't work in practice isn't even the biggest issue. Why do we even have laws that automatically limit publicity around a suicide? Public safety (particularly the evidence that shows that irresponsible reporting about suicide can lead to copycat behaviour), can't be the answer, because the law has never covered reporting of overseas suicides, or suicide attempts, or depictions of suicides on television (regulation of that is left to broadcasting standards, not the criminal law).

And the reason offered by the Law Commission – the need to protect the integrity of the coronial process – can't be the answer either, because there's no rule against calling a death an accident, or medical misadventure without the approval of a Coroner.

For years, the government has identified a problem (the risk of copycat behaviour) and has hoped an un-used and un-enforced criminal law would help solve it. A bill going through Parliament will increases the penalties and further restricts what can be said, expanding the prohibition to details of historic New Zealand suicides as well, but allowing media and others to call a death a "suspected suicide" without asking the Coroner first.

I'm not sure why they think anything will change, or why they think that declaring that everyone who writes "I don't know if you guys heard, but Mark overdosed last night" on a Facebook page to be a criminal will reduce the harms that publicity around suicides can cause.

No-one really seems to want to prosecute people grieving on Facebook, and no one to date has prosecuted any news media organisation for breaching the current ban, as many of them do to varying degrees quite frequently. The codes are known: "died suddenly", "Police said there were no suspicious circumstances", but that doesn't mean it's not illegal. There are even instances where the law is broken because media are acting responsibly: an otherwise innocuous story about a death, containing no information even suggesting suicide might end with a list of places people who may be contemplating suicide can turn for help.

We want rules that say that mass media shouldn't glamorise suicide, and shouldn't report on or depict suicide in a way which anyone might come away thinking it was a good idea. But the criminal offences in the Coroners Act have nothing to say about these issues.

However big a problem Facebook-grieving by friends and family of victims of suicide may be, it is not one we want to solve by prosecuting those grieving. The bigger problem is surely irresponsible depictions of suicide by the mass media, and these can be better addressed by broader guidelines in the form of Press Council rules or broadcasting standards, because those rules can cover things that have nothing to do with Coroners, who aren't going to be vetting scripts of Shortland Street episodes.

New Zealand seems to be the only country that uses the criminal law this way. We should be asking why. Because whatever the concerns are, passing a criminal law that covers only a small part of the area, and which no-one enforces probably doesn't achieve much.

WHERE TO GET HELP:

The Mental Health Foundation's free resource and information service will refer callers to some of the helplines below:

Lifeline (open 24/7) - 0800 543 354

Depression Helpline (open 24/7) - 0800 111 757

Healthline (open 24/7) - 0800 611 116

Samaritans (open 24/7) - 0800 726 666

Suicide Crisis Helpline (open 24/7) - 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO). This is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or those who are concerned about family or friends.

Youthline (open 24/7) - 0800 376 633. You can also text 234 for free between 8am and midnight, or email talk@youthline.co.nz

0800 WHATSUP children's helpline - phone 0800 9428 787 between 1pm and 10pm on weekdays and from 3pm to 10pm on weekends. Online chat is available from 7pm to 10pm every day at www.whatsup.co.nz.

Kidsline (open 24/7) - 0800 543 754. This service is for children aged 5 to 18. Those who ring between 4pm and 9pm on weekdays will speak to a Kidsline buddy. These are specially trained teenage telephone counsellors.

Your local Rural Support Trust - 0800 787 254 (0800 RURAL HELP)

Alcohol Drug Helpline (open 24/7) - 0800 787 797. You can also text 8691 for free.