International Law

Non-reportable injunctions - Mr. Justice Tugendhat, Mr. Justice Sweeney and Mr. Justice Maddison

The now abandoned Trafigura / Carter-Ruck "super injunction" saga and its associated Streisand effect continues:

This is the pathetic Government Written Answer to one of the Parliamentary Written Questions which were asked by Paul Farrelly MP at the same time as the one which Carter-Ruck attempted to suppress the reporting of:

15 Oct 2009 : Column 1010W

[...]

Injunctions

Paul Farrelly: 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]

Bridget Prentice: The information requested is not available. The High Court collects figures on applications, however injunctions are not separately identifiable, and there are currently no plans to amend databases to do so.

Why ever not ? Secret justice or injustice is utterly unacceptable in a democracy If such "non-reportable injunctions" (the term which is now popular in the media is the hyphenated "super-injunction") are really exceptional, then a careful note should be made of them, either by the UK Courts system or by the Ministry of Justice and statistics on their numbers etc. should be made public.

How long will the Labour (In)Justice Minister Jack Straw dither, before he actually does something about this ?

There is an attempt by the Carter-Ruck shysters and the Trafigura oil trading company to claimed that they never had any intention of trying to "gag" Parliament or the press, but nobody is likely to believe them, especially after they unsuccessfully tried to claim that the matter was now sub judice, also a ploy to stop Parliamentary discussion of it.

The Stockholm based whistleblower website wikileaks.org has published another Carter-Rick fax (to The Times legal department), which contains a copy of the Order by Mr Justice Tugendhat, which eases the restrictions which the previous Orders attempted to impose on Parliament.

See: Updated secret gag on UK Times preventing publication of Minton report into toxic waste dumping, 16 Oct 2009

This Order confirms the names of the Judges who issued the previous "super-injunctions" i.e.Mr. Justice Maddison and Mr.Justice Sweeney, but this latest Order itself raises some Questions about the competence of the senior Judiciary with respect to the Internet.and regarding the actual legal jurisdiction of the High Court of England and Wales.

Claim No HO09XX4132

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

Before the Honourable Mr Justice Tugendhat on 13 October 2009

BETWEEN

(1) RJW
(2) SJW

Claimants

- and -

(1) GUARDIAN NEWS AND MEDIA LIMITED

(2) THE PERSON OR PERSONS UNKNOWN

who in or about September 2009 offered or supplied to the publishers of The Guardian and/or David Leigh a copy of,or information contained in or derived from, the document described in the Confidential Schedule C to this Order relating to the operation or affairs of the First Applicant and/or the Second Applicant

Defendants

N.B. the faxed copy has a High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Action Depart. rubber stamp mark of the 15th October - hardly evidence of "Internet speed" modern communications.

Order

The learned judge having read correspondence between the Claimants and the First Defendant on 13 October 2009 agreeing to a variation of the Order of Mr Justice Sweeney of 18 September 2009 which extended the Order of Mr Justice Maddison of 11 September 2009.

IT IS ORDERED BY CONSENT that

The words "Ordered by Consent" torture the English language nonsensically.

An "Order" is not an "Agreement" or even a "Contract", which is what the word "Consent" implies in normal English.

1. Nothing in the Order of Maddison J of 11 September 2009 and/or the Sweeney J of 18 September 2009 shall prevent the First Defendant pr any other person from reorting or republishing information relating to:

i. any proceedings of the United Kingdom Parliament,including any information or matter published on the website www.parliament.uk

ii. any proceedings of the Scottish Parliament,including any information or matter published on the website www.scottish.parliament.uk

iii. any proceedings of the National Assembly for Wales including any information or matter published on the website www.assemblywales.org

or

iv. any proceedings of the Northern Ireland Assembly an any information or matter published on the website www.niassembly.gov.uk

2. The costs are reserved.

Dated this 13^th day of October 2009

With regard to Mr. Justice Tugendhat's Order, there are some Questions which spring to mind:

Full post as published by Spy Blog on October 17, 2009 (boomark / email).