End of week media law mop up: Ian Tomlinson inquest; super injunction rumours; and Cameron defence of PCC

Since we missed last week’s round up, here’s a bumper crop with stories from the previous fortnight. Super injunctions are still on everyone’s lips, following a claim in Parliament that a serving MP may have sought one too; whether it’s the sort that prohibits the mention of the order, or an anonymity privacy injunction, we don’t know. Sports presenter Gabby Logan has reportedly hit back at online rumours and denied that she has taken out a super injunction. Metro reports:

The presenter, who has been married for almost a decade and is the mother of five-year-old twins, said: ‘I’m a happily married and faithful wife.

‘It’s devastating and hurtful that malicious lies can be circulated on the internet without control when people who genuinely have something to hide can be protected by court rulings.’

The mainstream media is making a lot of noise about these orders, but more thorough, informed scrutiny is needed. Radio 4 Media Show addressed the issue last Wednesday and you can listen to the programme here.  Hugh Tomlinson QC, who has acted in several of the recent privacy cases, said that the courts are no longer issuing the sorts of injunctions in which reporting its very existence is prohibited.

“It’s [super injunctions] not running out of control. The judges take a lot of care over these things and one thing that they have done in recent times …  is to have public judgments: even when cases are heard in private, in almost all of them they are now giving a little judgment explaining what they’ve done and why.”

He also contended that material in the public interest was being suppressed:

“There do not exist cases where politicians or powerful corporations suppress wrongdoing by means of privacy injunctions – it just doesn’t happen.”

The Guardian director of legal editorial services, Gill Phillips disagreed with some of Tomlinson’s comments, and said that she thought many recent injunctions fell “on the non-private side of the line”:

“If you look at what Article 8 of the convention says, it talks about respect for privacy and family life. It seems to me that these people are showing no respect whatsoever for their own.”

Anyway, on with the rest of the UK’s media law news:

Libel

Ian Tomlinson inquest

Freedom of expression

And more on privacy / super injunctions…

Family law

Media regulation

Phone hacking

Contempt of court

Misc

Events

Finally, we’re not sure what’s going on at the Mirror’s picture desk… something doesn’t look right.

You can find a full stream of aggregated media law news via @medialawUK on Twitter; and Meeja Law tweets go out via @meejalaw. Contact me via @jtownend or . Relevant journalism and law events here: https://meejalaw.com/events/.

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2 Responses to End of week media law mop up: Ian Tomlinson inquest; super injunction rumours; and Cameron defence of PCC

  1. Pingback: Law and Media Round Up – 9 May 2011 « Inforrm's Blog

  2. Pingback: Media law mop up: Mosley defeat; injunctions by tweet; and Wikileaks gag | media law & ethics

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