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:
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
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)
Pressdram Limited are the publishers of Private Eye satirical magazine.
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
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.[...]
Good questions - will Jack Straw and the rest of the Ministry of (In)Justice evade giving any proper answers, as usual ?
WIll any investigative journalists or bloggers look into the possible corruption of the Judiciary, which such secrecy inevitably raises suspicions of ?
Feel free to comment below or to email us with any details, (taking the usual privacy precautions. using our PGP Public Encryption Key and anonymity measures e.g.Tor onion routing - see our Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers, investigative journalists and bloggers or political dissidents etc
"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.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmordbk2/91013o02.html
Cater Fuck lost this injunction case for Michael Napier in a massive way – here is the bailli link:
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2009/443.html
Boy has this given bad press to Napier..deserved though...just shows how people above the law think they can get way with anything they like….. just like Napier being given a Gong for his services to the legal profession (but forget to tell anyone that he was officially reprimanded for a so called “minor reprimand")….now how does that work and what does Jack Straw have to say???
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/24/law-society-investigation-michael-napier
The Questions about the Judges and the number of secret non-reportable injunctions remain, even though it seems that the Carter-Ruck injunction has been abandoned (without any apology).
Gag on Guardian reporting MP's Trafigura question lifted
What about the Freshfields injunctions ?
Even Jack Straw's son Will Straw seems to have blogged about this affair, so it must have got through to some people inside the out of touch "Westminster Village"
Good to hear now that the Guardian is able to report on the story now.38 Degrees are currently running a campaign on this. Take action now by emailing your MP and asking them to take a stand to stop this happening again in the future. Take action now, it only takes 2 mins. Go to:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/stop-the-gag
The name of Mr Justice Sweeney has been mentioned in the Twitterverse - is it true ?
Kate Bevan describes herself as a "Journalist writing about technology for the Guardian"
The Guardian reports that it has been served with 12 "non-reportable" injunctions this year
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/13/super-injunctions-guardian-carter-ruck
What will this Labour Government, or the Opposition parties do about the scandalous , freedom sapping libel law mess ?
Mr Justice Maddison seems to be the Judge who signed the original Injunction about the Minton report, back on 11th September 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/13/trafigura-drops-gag-guardian-oil
A copy of that Injunction document is available on https://wikileaks.org, as it was also sent to try to suppress the Norwegian media from reporting about this scandal.
I know of three very sensitive cases to the government in which the same judge, Justice Pill,was wheeled out.
The first case involves an appeal by John Drewe. In his trial John Drewe alleged that funds from the sale of the paintings were used to purchase arms. The judge refused disclosure of a company's accounts. I think the name of the company was Allivane.
The judge also appeared in the appeal of Barry Beardall. His decision not to grant the appeal was quite shocking in view of the failure of Customs & Excise's failure to make disclosure. Also he accepted the results of the Metropolitan Police into the investigation of an affidavit which stated that Customs & Excise were running excise duty frauds and that the monies gained were used for 'official business' The investigation was deeply and obviously flawed.
The other case I can't mention at the moment because it's ongoing.
More examples of judicial corruption! The problem originates with the Establishment. This “nomenklatura” used to be a relatively harmless group of the (inherited) over-privileged. Today it controls any aspect of British life that it wishes to, including the judiciary. The parliamentary system of government is broken. My own story is just another example. Its URL is:
http://zerzetzen.wikispaces.com
This is very nasty stuff from the establishment, which couldn’t occur in a real democracy. On the surface it’s about defamation, death threats, and a government cover-up. What it’s really about is the ability of the establishment and their tame secret police (MI5/6) to neuter our human rights industry, our judiciary, our government, our parliament, and our press. Roderick Russell
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