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charamei (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} charamei) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/community.gif){kind=small} unfunnybusiness, |
Some related and terrifying information
Private Eye #1246 (last fortnight's edition). I can't find it online, so excerpts:
'Last month a certain institution obtained a high court injunction to prevent a certain newspaper from publishing a certain document. More than that we cannot say: to do so is fraught with danger.
[...]
[In the past] If a company or individual tried to injunct a newspaper in advance but the newspaper said that it would justify the story in any subsequent libel action, the tendency of judges was to say "publish and be sued". For a while, pre-emptive high court orders seemed to be going the way of Spangles and the Bay City Rollers.
Not Now. Thanks to some aggressive solicitors and timorous judges, prior restraint is now a flourishing industry. If lawyers get a whiff that one of their clients is about to be embarrassed, late in the evening they contact a duty judge - often one who has no experience of libel or media law. And the judge ... errs on the side of caution. The newspaper may not even be aware of this "hearing without notice", still less have a chance to argue its case.
[...] The new breed of super-injunction is far more oppressive than the traditional court order under which a newspaper or TV channel is (perhaps temporarily) prevented from publishing a particular allegation. It usually includes an order that "the publication of all information relating to these proceedings or of information describing them or the intended claim is expressly prohibited." (Our italics.) In other words, nobody can report that the order has been granted, or who applied for it. Even the identities of the judge and newspaper remain secret, and anyone who even hints at them "may be held to be contempt of court and may be imprisoned, fined or have their assets seized".
[...]
The Guardian's legal correspondent noted last week that "it is impossible to say just how many of these cases there are", since no one can report or discuss them - though the Eye learns that one MP hopes to break the conspiracy of silence, under parliamentary privilege, when the commons reassembles later this month. But it's clear that they are breeding and sprouting like giant hogweed: "The Guardian, for instance, has been served with at least 12 notices of injunctions that could not be reported so far this year, compared with six in the whole of 2006 and five in 2005."
[...]
In one recent application for a super-injunction, the QC for the claimants explained to the judge why a newspaper must not only be stopped from publishing its story but also banned from alluding to the gagging order: if it was allowed to report the injunction, it would probably run a piece accusing his clients of trying to muzzle the press.
Which, of course, is exactly what they were doing. The super-injunction was duly granted.'
Bolding is all mine.
Good luck to the Guardian, and here's some sincere hope that they and Private eye between them manage to get rid of this terrifying trend.
Private Eye #1246 (last fortnight's edition). I can't find it online, so excerpts:
'Last month a certain institution obtained a high court injunction to prevent a certain newspaper from publishing a certain document. More than that we cannot say: to do so is fraught with danger.
[...]
[In the past] If a company or individual tried to injunct a newspaper in advance but the newspaper said that it would justify the story in any subsequent libel action, the tendency of judges was to say "publish and be sued". For a while, pre-emptive high court orders seemed to be going the way of Spangles and the Bay City Rollers.
Not Now. Thanks to some aggressive solicitors and timorous judges, prior restraint is now a flourishing industry. If lawyers get a whiff that one of their clients is about to be embarrassed, late in the evening they contact a duty judge - often one who has no experience of libel or media law. And the judge ... errs on the side of caution. The newspaper may not even be aware of this "hearing without notice", still less have a chance to argue its case.
[...] The new breed of super-injunction is far more oppressive than the traditional court order under which a newspaper or TV channel is (perhaps temporarily) prevented from publishing a particular allegation. It usually includes an order that "the publication of all information relating to these proceedings or of information describing them or the intended claim is expressly prohibited." (Our italics.) In other words, nobody can report that the order has been granted, or who applied for it. Even the identities of the judge and newspaper remain secret, and anyone who even hints at them "may be held to be contempt of court and may be imprisoned, fined or have their assets seized".
[...]
The Guardian's legal correspondent noted last week that "it is impossible to say just how many of these cases there are", since no one can report or discuss them - though the Eye learns that one MP hopes to break the conspiracy of silence, under parliamentary privilege, when the commons reassembles later this month. But it's clear that they are breeding and sprouting like giant hogweed: "The Guardian, for instance, has been served with at least 12 notices of injunctions that could not be reported so far this year, compared with six in the whole of 2006 and five in 2005."
[...]
In one recent application for a super-injunction, the QC for the claimants explained to the judge why a newspaper must not only be stopped from publishing its story but also banned from alluding to the gagging order: if it was allowed to report the injunction, it would probably run a piece accusing his clients of trying to muzzle the press.
Which, of course, is exactly what they were doing. The super-injunction was duly granted.'
Bolding is all mine.
Good luck to the Guardian, and here's some sincere hope that they and Private eye between them manage to get rid of this terrifying trend.
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