Guardian gagged from reporting parliament - Printable Version +- Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora) +-- Forum: Deep Politics Forum (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/forum-1.html) +--- Forum: Propaganda (https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/forum-12.html) +--- Thread: Guardian gagged from reporting parliament (/thread-2374.html) Pages:
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Guardian gagged from reporting parliament - Magda Hassan - 14-10-2009 Guardian gagged from reporting parliament The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck. Photograph: John D McHugh/AFP The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights. Today's published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found. The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret. The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations. The Guardian has vowed urgently to go to court to overturn the gag on its reporting. The editor, Alan Rusbridger, said: "The media laws in this country increasingly place newspapers in a Kafkaesque world in which we cannot tell the public anything about information which is being suppressed, nor the proceedings which suppress it. It is doubly menacing when those restraints include the reporting of parliament itself." The media lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC said Lord Denning ruled in the 1970s that "whatever comments are made in parliament" can be reported in newspapers without fear of contempt. He said: "Four rebel MPs asked questions giving the identity of 'Colonel B', granted anonymity by a judge on grounds of 'national security'. The DPP threatened the press might be prosecuted for contempt, but most published." The right to report parliament was the subject of many struggles in the 18th century, with the MP and journalist John Wilkes fighting every authority – up to the king – over the right to keep the public informed. After Wilkes's battle, wrote the historian Robert Hargreaves, "it gradually became accepted that the public had a constitutional right to know what their elected representatives were up to". http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/12/guardian-gagged-from-reporting-parliament Guardian gagged from reporting parliament - David Guyatt - 14-10-2009 I'm intrigued about the why? Guardian gagged from reporting parliament - Magda Hassan - 14-10-2009 Me too. I do know Carter Ruck are the lawyer of choice in libel tourism. Guardian gagged from reporting parliament - Helen Reyes - 14-10-2009 first and only thing that springs to mind is a running drama on wikileaks. Guardian gagged from reporting parliament - Jan Klimkowski - 14-10-2009 It's Trafigura and Carter-Ruck, truly a match made in Hell. See here for details: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/trafigura-probo-koala Trafigura is suing the BBC2 programme Newsnight for its reports on the case. I would urge reasonable caution as to what is posted here at DPF, as Carter-Ruck's firm is notorious for launching libel suits against all and sundry, and pursuing them to the bitter bitter end. Guardian gagged from reporting parliament - Helen Reyes - 14-10-2009 Jan Klimkowski Wrote:I would urge reasonable caution as to what is posted here at DPF, as Carter-Ruck's firm is notorious for launching libel suits against all and sundry, and pursuing them to the bitter bitter end. Queen Mum's the word then. Constitutional crisis over dumping of toxic waste in Africa, it looks like. Guardian gagged from reporting parliament - Jan Klimkowski - 14-10-2009 Helen Reyes Wrote:Jan Klimkowski Wrote:I would urge reasonable caution as to what is posted here at DPF, as Carter-Ruck's firm is notorious for launching libel suits against all and sundry, and pursuing them to the bitter bitter end. Yes, indeed. It stinks. It rots. It sears. Unfortunately, English libel law is such a disgrace that scumbags from around the world seek to use it to impoverish those who would speak truth to power. I believe several American states have introduced laws to make it illegal to use English libel law to restrict US First Amendment free speech rights. Guardian gagged from reporting parliament - Magda Hassan - 16-10-2009 Who are the Judges who are granting secret injunctions on behalf of Trafigura and Barclays etc. ? By wtwu on October 13, 2009 6:03 AM [/url] Who exactly are the Judges who are are, for no good reason,imposing secrecy orders which attempt to hide the very fact that a rich client has hired expensive lawyers to attempt to suppress a newspaper story ?. There is often a case for Injunctions etc. about the names of the parties involved in a court case, but to attempt to hide the very fact that there are legal proceedings in the first place, is evil. Such secrecy is not necessary even for the most serious cases involving National Security. When this appears to be extended to the suppression of the reporting even of Parliamentary Written Questions, then it is time for the system to be reformed immediately. See today's coded story in The Guardian: [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/12/guardian-gagged-from-reporting-parliament]Guardian gagged from reporting parliament which has provoked the Streisand Effect flurry in the blogosphere and the twitterverse e.g. Guido Fawkes and Ministry of Truth etc. Presumably it was one of these Written Questions, by former financial journalist (at Reuters, the Independent on Sunday and City Editor at The Observer) Paul Farrelly, the Labour MP for Newcastle under Lyme. WEDNESDAY 14 OCTOBER Pressdram Limited are the publishers of Private Eye satirical magazine.Questions for Written Answer Notices given between Thursday 17 September and Friday 9 October [...] 60 N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the Court of Appeal judgment in May 2009 in the case of Michael Napier and Irwin Mitchell v Pressdram Limited in respect of press freedom to report proceedings in court. (292409) BAILLI have the judgment online: Napier & Anor v Pressdram Ltd [2009] EWCA Civ 443 (19 May 2009) 61 N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura. (293006) Inevitably, copies of these documents are available on the WikiLeakS.org whistleblower website in Sweden. How do expensive firms of lawyers still get away with charging so much money, for legal threats and injunction tricks, which try to suppress information in the media and on the internet, but which are so ineffective and counterproductive to the interests of their clients ? They inevitably create their own public relations disasters. 62 N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will (a) collect and (b) publish statistics on the number of non-reportable injunctions issued by the High Court in each of the last five years. (293012) 63 Good questions - will Jack Straw and the rest of the Ministry of (In)Justice evade giving any proper answers, as usual ?N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what mechanisms HM Court Service uses to draw up rosters of duty judges for the purpose of considering time of the essence applications for the issuing of injunctions by the High Court. [...] WIll any investigative journalists or bloggers look into the possible corruption of the Judiciary, which such secrecy inevitably raises suspicions of ? http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2009/10/13/who-are-the-judges-who-are-granting-secret-injunctions-on-behalf-of-trafigura-an.html Guardian gagged from reporting parliament - Jan Klimkowski - 16-10-2009 Quote:Minton report: Carter-Ruck give up bid to keep Trafigura study secret http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/16/carter-ruck-abandon-minton-injunction Guardian gagged from reporting parliament - Jan Klimkowski - 20-10-2009 Quote:Trafigura: anatomy of a super-injunction http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/20/trafigura-anatomy-super-injunction The link is to a clause-by-clause dissection of the "super-injunction" in all its filth, with a pdf of much of the original document. |