Premier Dwight Ball wants N.L. government involved in media injunction over murder trial evidence

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Dwight Ball wants to pull the provincial government into the legal action he has filed as a private citizen against CBC News and other media outlets restricting them from reporting on evidence in the Brandon Phillips murder trial.

• N.L. Premier Dwight Ball wins injunction to block CBC story linked to Brandon Phillips murder trial

Lawyers for Ball filed documents at Supreme Court on Friday seeking to add the Newfoundland and Labrador government as a respondent in the matter.

In a court application, Ball says the province, through the attorney general, is responsible "for appearing in this honourable court where public rights of concern to the provincial government are being litigated."

Ball's filings contend that it has become clear that the province has an interest in the proceeding "and, in the interests of the administration of justice, ought to be included in the original pleadings to correct this oversight."

The matter is due back at Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court on Dec. 19.

"The statement that our client wants the NL government involved in the media injunction is inaccurate," wrote Ball's lawyer, Peter O'Flaherty, in an email to CBCFriday.

"A procedural application was brought today simply to add Her Majesty the Queen to the originating application for an order protecting an innocent party, not for the purpose of involving the NL government in the media injunction," he said.

"As counsel, we advised this was a necessary legal requirement and the procedural step was taken solely for that reason."

Interim injunction granted

The premier won an interim injunction against CBC News and other media outlets earlier this week.

Chief Justice Raymond Whalen granted an order that prohibited publication of a story about documents entered as an exhibit at the Brandon Phillips murder trial.

Those documents were entered into evidence without the jury present.

The court initially declined to provide those documents to CBC News.

More than a month ago, CBC News filed a Charter application to access them.

Part of that process saw CBC News serve its application on the provincial Department of Justice, and the Crown lawyers called in from Nova Scotia to handle the Phillips trial.

Neither opposed the CBC's application at the time, in early November.

The defence also did not oppose it.

Justice Valerie Marshall granted the CBC's application.

But the evidence could not be published until the jury began deliberations.

Before that could happen, Ball went to court for an interim injunction. CBCNews had approached him for comment in advance of publication.

On Monday night, the chief justice imposed a publication ban on what the documents are, and what information they contain.

The jury went out Tuesday afternoon, and returned with a guilty verdict of second-degree murder on Friday.

Provided info to police as a 'private citizen'

"In October 2015, Dwight Ball, as a private citizen, provided information of his own accord to the police regarding a homicide," O'Flaherty said in an earlier statement on Tuesday.

"He recognizes that as a public figure his actions in assisting the police in 2015 are now arguably a matter of public interest. But as a father, he has acted to protect the privacy of an innocent person. You will appreciate that he cannot comment on this matter while it is before the courts."

Phillips, now 29, was charged with first-degree murder in October 2015, in connection with a botched armed robbery at the Captain's Quarters hotel in downtown St. John's.

At the time, Phillips was the boyfriend of Jade Ball, the premier's daughter.

During testimony in open court last month, it emerged that Phillips and Jade Ball were watched by members of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary's surveillance unit for days after the fatal shooting. Jade Ball was not accused of wrongdoing.

• Dwight Ball's apartment, cars watched as daughter tracked during Phillips murder investigation

That surveillance took police to the Tiffany, a building on Tiffany Lane in St. John's where Dwight Ball has an apartment, in the days after the murder, before they made the arrest.

At the time, Dwight Ball was not premier, but was just weeks away from the election that swept him into the province's top political job.