UnCoverer - Thanks! It just confirms my position on this whole thing. These idiots who take out superinjunctions do NOT have a legal right to avoid public embarrassment simply because they are rich and simply because a bunch of judges administering secret justice (or as Mark Stephens points out, secret injustice) agree with their right to avoid embarrassment after indiscretions have been uncovered.

We must all suffer embarrassment after indiscretions. That's what separates us from the lions and antelope on the African savannahs! That the level of embarrassment is commensurate with one's position of popularity in society is only logical and right. If you don't want to be HUGELY embarrassed by your foolishness, then don't be foolish or don't seek fame and glory! I have no problems with deception being exposed and I'm sure the suffering partners of the cheating celebrities don't have a problem with it either.

What's your take on the so called "Hyperinjunctions" where supposedly the person who is the subject of the injunction isn't even allowed to talk to a lawyer (or their MP) about it? Not such a worry the MPs given the blatant abuse of parliamentary privilege last week by one MP. But surely if you are the subject of an injunction you must be able to speak to a lawyer about it.

This article is certainly a lot more measured than Stephen Baxter's opinionated blurt but still doesn't deal with the main issue of the very real potential abuses that superinjunctions can and have sought to muffle.

Private Eye has, to my mind, provided disturbing and real examples of legal gagging. There are a number of cases that have come before the courts which the media have been prevented from revealing and they are far more sinister than merely unmasking extra-curricular activity for the amusement of the masses: (a)The name of a company which sacked a female employee after an executive ended an extramarital affair with her and told bosses that "he would prefer...not to have to see her at all and that one or the other should leave." (b) The effect that a sexual relationship between 2 senior execs at a global business may have had on the running of that business during a period when it got into severe financial difficulties. (c) many more listed in their latest issue.

I agree with the writer's view that the media is guilty of a large measure of immature prurience. But in recognising this, let's not throw the baby of the argument out with the rest of the dirty media bathwater. There is a real danger that superinjunctions will, or indeed, may already have taken on the local free speech equivalence of the European Arrest Warrant - designed with noble aims in mind and now being abused through its widespread application to areas for which it was not intended.

Such a blithe, contrarian assessment of superinjunctions, injunctions and their respective impact on press freedom. It's the consequences of the proliferation of these injunctions which is of concern.

And just on a journalistic point. If you know so much about the Trafigura case and lots of other people don't, why not devote a line or two to explaining? Or is that too much to ask.

I think there's a lot of truth in this, but it misses a couple of points:

-- The so-called 'hyperinjunction'. These are truly worrying, if one is even prohibited from seeking legal counsel that is a serious contravention of your basic rights.

-- The cost of gaining an injunction appears to make this 'privacy for the rich'.

-- The distinction between personal privacy and corporate secrecy is unclear. Surely you are not going to defend the Trafigura injunction?

What it gets down to - one law for the rich and one law for the poor.
However, that said, we have no objection to Jeremy Clarkson taking out a 'superinjunction' should he ever feel the need to.
The love-life of some individuals should automatically and at any cost be kept under wraps. If necessary, even legal aid should be offered.

Prude

So if I find one of my Tweets was deleted last week when I had an uneducated guess at the subjects of superinjunctions as listed in Private Eye should I a) congratulate myself that I got one right or b) fear the long arm of the law for what was, at best, a good bit of telepathy (and does that count as a Thought Crime?)

In the U.S. such privacy rights are limited for those who are public figures. A public figure being, in part, defined in terms of whether or not someone has previously given a press interview or otherwise thrust themselves into the public sphere. This seems like a sensible model for the UK to follow in so far as if someone asks for publicity or agrees to it, they forfeit, at least to some extent, their right to privacy -- can't have it both ways, so to speak. This having been said, news agencies ought to exercise some common decency and not simply report on salacious details of a celebrity's life unless it directly impacts upon their normal role within their professional/celebrity life. But to make such reporting banned as a matter of law via an injunction is an unreasonable breach of freedom of press, too easily abused by rich people who simply want to avoid embarrassment for their PUBLIC conduct e.g. in the course of their job duties or an area that directly impacts on their job duties (i.e. integrity).

In case you didn't see the original posts...

http://twitter.com/#%21/InjunctionSuper

Unusually, I disagree with David on this occasion.

There is a legitimate public interest in whom any person has sex with. It is a perfectly proper question to put in courts - when citing adultery in divorce, when seeking an annulment of marriage on the grounds of non-consummation, when examing whether two people constitute partners for benefits purposes to give just thee examples.

Prurient details are not a matter of public interest, but I do not see a general right to privacy in merely identifying one's sexual partners.

If the Marr injunction had stated that it was permissible to state that Andrew Marr had had an affair with (whoever it was) but no other details were permitted, then that would serve the public interest purpose in keeping Marr's actual private life private, without preventing the substantive story being run.

I don't wish to know what positions, or how often, or which hotels, or what they were wearing - I still have details Max Clifford made up about David Mellor stuck in my brain and cannot remove them however much I would like to do so - and moreover, those details do genuinely invade the privacy of the bedroom.

But people's public behaviour is influenced by whom they are having sex with, and it seems entirely reasonable to me that there is a legitimate public interest in knowing that journalist X is having an affair with politician Y because that will affect every interview the one performs of the other.

The other thing I find utterly obnoxious is when some large fraction of the media/legal world all know some fact and the general public are kept in the dark. When the subject of the story is themselves a media person, the story is not being kept from their friends, colleagues and acquaintances, but only from the general public - so the injunction does not protect their privacy in the ordinary course of their affairs, but only in respect of their public reputation.

We already have a law for the protection of the public reputation - the law of defamation - and justification is a defense against such a case; where the allegation is true, justification would be certain to succeed and no defamation tort could be sustained.

It seems to me that you are not entitled to a public reputation as a good family man loyal to your wife if you are having an affair; and if you are working in the media, then a privacy injunction will not prevent your friends, colleagues, wife, children and so forth from finding out, some being the very people that will inevitably have to be notified about the injunction and then the inevitable gossip will soon spread to the rest.

If Kiss-and-tells consisted only of "Model X slept with Footballer Y" rather than "Five-times a night Footballer Y was great in bed, says Model X" or "Footballer Z was a terrible lay, says Model X" then the newspapers would not be able to make so much money from running them (which would serve the public interest of their exploitation of the invasions of privacy) but without setting a precedent in relation to the substance of an allegation.

Free Speech is Free Speech whatever the situation and wherever you find it !The laws of libel and slander exist to prevent defamation.Nothing however protects parents from neighbours gossip when children confiscated by the State mysteriously disappear. Any attempt to explain what happened and to justify themselves ,and parents are threatened with jail !
I really do not understand how any intelligent person with an ounce of compassion can justify legal gagging of a mother whose child has been taken for example for “not engaging with professionals” or for” risk of emotional abuse !.”Many in this situation have even been told (wrongly)that they cannot discuss the situation with their immediate family !
IMPORTANT !! Article 8 of the human rights act was clearly drafted to protect families from State interference,and it is utterly perverse of judges to interpret it instead as a license to gag parents who have been oppressed by the State !Nowhere else in the EU do judges twist this Article 8 designed to protect the family from “interference from public bodies” into an instrument of persecution and gagging to suppress all protest from parents claiming to be wronged by the State
It is not a question of “rights “for either families or children.The fact is that the judges are trained to study the intention of those who drafted a new law before interpreting it .The intention was to safeguard the family from interference from “public bodies” not to gag any parent that dared to complain about such interference !Certainly not to put the privacy of a newborn baby that could neither speak nor write ,above the right of a mother to speak out and object to her baby’s removal.
As long as there is no infringement of the official secrets act everyone should be free to say what they like when they like , without judges and social workers rushing to protect their own deplorable conduct by legally gagging everyone in sight ! Sticks and stones etc …..Yes,I know racial abuse is disgusting but making it a criminal offence is an absurdity when applied to petty squabbles between persons of different racial origins.Moseley's activities with 5 "ladies" hardly formed part of his family life that needed to be protected by Article 8 !
He could have relied in the press to justify his enjoyment of such activities and even recommend them to others if he chose, instead of rushing to high priced lawyers !
We all have mouths so it makes more sense to answer back than to call for the police or our lawyers !
To return to the more urgent question of gagging aggrieved parents accused of emotional abuse (or risk of it !) whose children have been taken for forced adoption....Nobody died of emotional abuse ,so as a matter of priority the UK “SS” should stop wasting money and time in countless court cases pursuing parents(often in foreign countries) who have never harmed their children and obviously love them judging by their desperate attempts to fight the courts and recover them. .Instead they should give frequent and thorough medical examinations to children at risk of repeated physical harm .That would have saved the lives of Baby p and many others from parents and carers who never have fought in the family courts to recover their children ;They would have run a mile from any court