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In the UK, a Few Tweets Restore Freedom of Speech

Posted by kdawson on from the inconvenient-truths dept.

Several readers wrote to us about the situation in the UK that saw the Guardian newspaper forbidden by a judge from reporting a question in UK parliament. The press's freedom to do so has been fought for since at least 1688 and fully acknowledged since the 19th century. At issue was a matter of public record — but the country's libel laws meant that the newspaper could not inform the public of what parliament was up to. The question concerned the oil trading company Trafigura, the toxic waste scandal they are involved in, and their generous use of libel lawyers to silence those who would report on the whole thing. After tweeters and bloggers shouted about Trafigura all over the Internet, the company's lawyers agreed to drop the gag request.

4 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. Stephen Fry by Canazza · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I loved Stephen Fry's quote on this

    "Can it be true? Carter-Ruck caves in! Hurrah! Trafigura will deny it had anything to do with Twitter, but we know don't we? We know! Yay!!!"

    --
    It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
    1. Re:Stephen Fry by teh+kurisu · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That depends on what you regard as 'the problem'.

      The 'super-injunction', as the press are calling it, was the injunction placed on the Guardian's publication of the Minton Report, and the associated gag order that prevented the paper from revealing the existence of the injunction.

      The judge didn't directly apply the gag order to the parliamentary question tabled by Paul Farrelly (which didn't exist at the time), and by all accounts the gag order did not cover parliamentary proceedings in any case because of qualified privilege. The only reason it became an issue was because the Guardian received a specific legal threat from law firm Carter-Ruck:

      "The threatened publication would place the Guardian in contempt of court ... please confirm by immediate return that the publications threatened will not take place."

      As we all know, statements made by lawyers are often merely the legal opinions of said lawyers.

      The gag order is the sinister part of the whole thing (not the injunction, which is perfectly reasonable given judicial oversight), but I'd like to point out that these are not uniquely British as the GP seems to be alluding. I'm put in mind of the National Security Letters sent out by arms of the US Government, which placed similar gag orders, but unlike this situation did not have any judicial oversight.

  2. One down, an unknown number to go. by netpixie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    According to the last issue of Private Eye there are quite a few of these super-injunctions currently being enforced (i.e. injunctions that not only stop you from saying something, but stop you from telling anyone that you've been injuncted).

    I'd like a few more of them to be twittered, at least so we know that something's being hidden, even if we don't know what it is.

    (and I know injuncted isn't the right word, but I don't know what is)

  3. Britain - Libel capital of the work. by GammaStream · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hopefully this will motivate the courts and Parliament to do something about the problem of people coming to our country and using our courts to solve their petty grievances due to our ridiculous libel laws. The wikipedia article on libel tourism is particularly good in this regard. A lawyer on Newsnight (available on iplayer) last night listed the example of a Ukrainian business man who was suing a Ukrainian website for libel in the British courts under the justification that there happened to be some people in the UK who can read Ukrainian. This sort of stuff has simply got to stop. To help, sign the petition on the the no.10 website and the website 38 degrees is also running a campaign.