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Superinjunctions

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
What do we reckon? Likely to survive for celebrities protecting their imgage, or heading fast for disappearing.
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think that the super injunction as we know it has definitely had its day, due to the huge amount of media attention and the obvious holes that have been identified and exploited (primarily over the internet). I think that the law is in serious danger of looking quite ridiculous and, thus, super injunctions will be changed to better reflect public opinion and to better promote actual fairness on all sides.

    I still believe that such injunctions will exist but there will be clearer guidelines on when such an injunction is appropriate and when it isn't. I also believe that there will be an expiry period on such injunctions that will be far shorter than it is at present. I think that interim orders will be granted to allow people to sort out their affairs before the media can make those affairs public. However, I think such orders will be limited to a matter of months rather than years and the primary aim will be to give consideration to those affected by whatever is being concealed.

    That's how I see this playing out.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Most injunctions are legitimate. Protecting the names of rape victims, for example. But yeah, the ones designed to protect cheating celebrities have surely had their day?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Injunctions that protect the innocent, which as IWS has said, such as victims of crime is totally appropriate. Injunctions that prevent violent parents finding their children and preventing details of their whereabouts being published are another good use of them.

    As for protecting the guilty, "celebrities" who've got more money than sense and can't keep their dick in their pants? Let's just say, if you cheat then karma can be a bitch.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Indeed. Injunctions for personal/national safety/security seem perfectly reasonable.

    Injunctions for someones image are a joke - and have proved that there is actaully a use for twitter.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    People who rely on the media for huge proportions of their market value, only to then try and put a gag on that same media when they have transgressed, are guilty of gross hypocrisy and don't deserve protecting. Their partners or families deserve protection, particularly the children, and that is why I am in favour of some kind of interim order to allow them time to acclimatise. It is obviously the responsibility of the person in question to protect their 'loved ones' from the damage done by these kind of illicit affairs that we're seeing, but that still doesn't negate the possible need for intervention by the courts on a short term basis.

    In an ideal world I would like to see it made illegal for the press to pay sums of money for stories. Perhaps it would see far more stories slipping under the net, and some of those might be of great public interest, but I don't like the idea of people profiting from misery in the way that 'whistleblowers' often do. I should imagine they'd profit from media attention regardless of any lump sump payment anyway.

    Also I would like to see harsher penalties for media company releases that are subsequently proven to be false, and not just when the victim decides to take private action. There should be a real incentive to make sure that facts are established before careers and lives are wrecked.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Celebrities have as much right to a private life as anyone else.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Melian wrote: »
    Celebrities have as much right to a private life as anyone else.

    Yeah, see, no.

    Unless it is forced celebrity (I am trying to think of an example and failing) or someone who is born into it, the career they choose means they are going to be bombarded by the media. They know this. People who keep their entire private lives private I agree with you, but those who use their celebrity for personal gain or Katie Price/Kerry Katona themselves and sell every aspect of their lives to television should not be able to pick and choose which aspects of their lives are too private for the media which has accelerated their popularity.

    ALSO, wrt the Imogen Thomas/Ryan Giggs thing, while I don't think she is an entirely innocent party, I DO think it is massively unfair that she was "outed" and therefore forced to take all the flak for something which took two people.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I personally think the issue lies with the media in thinking that I care what Ryan Giggs has been up to.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    G-Raffe wrote: »
    I personally think the issue lies with the media in thinking that I care what Ryan Giggs has been up to.
    You think the rest of the UK population agrees with you?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yeah, see, no.

    ALSO, wrt the Imogen Thomas/Ryan Giggs thing, while I don't think she is an entirely innocent party, I DO think it is massively unfair that she was "outed" and therefore forced to take all the flak for something which took two people.

    Though to be fair she was only out because she tried to sell the story to the papers.

    I can see the use of superinjunctions in that some celebs are basically blackmailed by people threatening to go to the papers. The celeb probably should have kept their trousers on, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't give them some protection against being set up.

    However, whether in a word of tweets and internet superinjunctions work is another question
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Melian wrote: »
    Celebrities have as much right to a private life as anyone else.

    Do they though? Off the top of my head I can think of one who does have a private life, Jamie Redknapp. He's happily married, doesn't go out on the town, doesn't cheat, doesn't do much of anything really. Because of that we don't see his photo in the papers, the press leave him alone because he's boring.

    Giggs on the other hand slipped it into a big brother contestant/glamour model. He's a cheat and he tried to avoid exposure by turning to the courts, instead of just doing what Redknapp does and keep it in his pants.

    Frankipanda, I can think of the Middletons. With the exception of Kate, I don't think the rest of them are appreciative of the cameras following them around everywhere....
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yeah, see, no.

    Unless it is forced celebrity (I am trying to think of an example and failing) or someone who is born into it, the career they choose means they are going to be bombarded by the media. They know this.

    Nonsense.

    Lets take Jeremy Clarkson as an example, because he's said he's in favour of injunctions. His career is to be a motoring journalist, his job is to drive fast cars quickly and make lazy sexual innuendos on the television. He doesn't claim to have any moral authority over anybody else, he doesn't claim to be whiter than white. Therefore if he chooses to sleep with someone who is not his wife (as has been alleged), then that is a matter for him, his wife and his mistress.

    The only time sexual indiscretions should be reported is when the relationship affects an important professional role (e.g. Fred Goodwin allegedly sleeping with a senior RBS executive whilst the bank collapsed around him), when a politician is claiming one thing and doing another (e.g. David Mellor and his toes) and when a criminal act has taken place. If Wayne Rooney chooses to go and sleep with a skanky hooker she should not be allowed to sell that story to the newspapers.

    What is in the public interest is not the same as what is interesting to the public.
    ALSO, wrt the Imogen Thomas/Ryan Giggs thing, while I don't think she is an entirely innocent party, I DO think it is massively unfair that she was "outed" and therefore forced to take all the flak for something which took two people.

    No, she was outed because she tried to extort £50,000 out of Ryan Giggs by saying she would go to the papers if he didn't pay her. She then colluded with The Sun newspaper by begging to meet him in a hotel and then covertly taking paparazzi photographers along to snap them together; the newspaper were intending to print the photos as a "secret liaison", implying that a relationship that had ended was still ongoing.

    If you haven't done so already, you should go read Eady LJ's judgment in the case. It's fascinating. She was named because she behaved disgracefully, she wasn't named because she had a relationship with him.

    As for Jamie Redknapp, his "quite private life" extends to running a magazine where you have to earn £1,000,000 a year before you are allowed to buy it. The guy's an arse.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If you haven't done so already, you should go read Eady LJ's judgment in the case.

    That sounds like good advice to me.

    Coincidently,the judge utilised the same words used previously by Flashman in this thread, namely "set up" and "blackmail".
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm sorry but that's complete rubbish.

    There is a reasonable right to privacy and there is a reasonable expectation that a sexual relationship should be private. People have a freedom of expression but not where it impacts upon other people and the only exception to this should be where there is a public interest angle which outweighs the impact on privacy. An example of this is the Trafigura case- the company were illegally dumping toxic waste and should never have been granted an injunction to prevent newspapers from reporting it.

    If Imogen Thomas wants to tell Giggs' wife that he's a cheat she should be allowed to do that. Nobody would argue with that- the matter is being kept private. But what the hell gives her the right to demand fifty grand off him and then toddle off to the newspapers anyway?

    The right to expression does not, and should not, extend to kiss-and-tell stories in tabloid newspapers. It has nothing to do with "censorship", it's about common courtesy. I wouldn't expect a one-night-stand to blog about their sexual relationship and it doesn't change because he happens to be wealthy. We're not talking about a case of public hypocrisy- Giggs isn't a politician banning divorce or demanding "family values" and he isn't a homophobe with a secret gay relationship- we're talking about a man who happens to be good at football having sex with a woman who happens to be good at being orange. he has a reasonable expectation to privacy.

    Yes, he shouldn't have cheated, but that's a matter for him and his wife. As for the harm, it isn't just his public humiliation, why should his wife have paparazzi doorstepping her? I take you have seen the photos of her this morning with a massive discussion about the fact she's not wearing a wedding ring. Seriously, just leave her the fuck alone.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    jamelia wrote: »
    And yes, the hooker who shagged Wayne Rooney is harmed if you don't let her tell people about it. So then why should the harm caused to him by the inevitable consequences of sticking his dick in everything that moves outweigh the harms caused to those women when we restrict their right to freedom of expression?

    I'm confused, how on earth is she harmed? She agreed to have sex with him for money and took his money, where is the harm? That she wasn't allowed to get another twenty grand off a tabloid newspaper? If Wayne Rooney had been Wayne Rooney, MD of Rooney's Carpets and Rugs in Wythenshawe, nobody would have given a shite and no newspaper would have paid. She doesn't go to the tabloids for every client, only the ones people have heard of.

    The consequences of having extra-marital sex are that your spouse finds out. The prostitute should have told his wife, not taken twenty grand and told the entire world. The fact that newspapers print this bollocks does not make it acceptable. They printed pictures of Pippa Middleton with no top on and that's not acceptable either.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    we're talking about a man who happens to be good at football having sex with a woman who happens to be good at being orange.

    I'm not sure where I stand on this issue, but that got a genui-LOL. :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Again, complete nonsense.

    People don't have the right to "tell their life story if they so choose" if, by telling that story, they will impact on other people without good and just cause. That's not a groundless assertion, that's a legal fact; if you don't believe me, go and examine the judgment by Eady LJ. In this case it isn't just Giggs it impacts on, but it also impacts on his wife and children- not the cheating, but the doorstepping by photographers desperate to get photos of his wife and kids to see how she's "coping".

    Helen Woods is free to sell her story of life as a prostitiute- she could make a fortune, Belle du Jour did without ever naming a single client. What she isn't free to do is go around naming who her clients are because they have a reasonable expectation that she will keep the transaction secret. Again, that is a legal fact as a couple of actors have had injunctions taken out to prevent her naming them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    it also impacts on his wife and children- not the cheating, but the doorstepping by photographers desperate to get photos of his wife and kids to see how she's "coping".

    If the injunction just prevented those actions then I wouldn't have an issue with it, but it doesn't.

    Using the protection of the court allegations have been made about an individual who, because of that ruling, has not right to defend herself. As someone else has said, there is also the basic right (or what *should* be a basic right) of freedom of expression. There should never be a case - with the exception of national security - where a "fact" cannot be reported or said. When you have injunction which effectively mean that you and I cannot even talk about it fullstop, then we have a serious issue.

    I really don't care whether Gigss or any other "top premiership footballer" is screwing around. I do care whether the press have a right to do a story about it. Just as I did with Trafigura.

    As for the Human Rights Law and "privacy", isn't that privacy from the state, not from other people?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Imogen Thomas chose to reveal her own identity. In just about every other case of sexual indiscretion, neither party has been named. The woman in Goodwin's case hasn't been named, the woman in Marr's case hasn't been named, the woman in the case of the two actors on a "popular TV programme" hasn't been named. Thomas had the right to name herself. What she didn't have the right to do was name the footballer she had been dating.

    This is the judgment in the case, granting the injunction: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2011/1232.html. Seriously, read it and get back to me. In particular, I would draw attention to the following:
    23. In circumstances of this kind, there has to be a two stage process. This accords with what has been described as "the new methodology": Re S (A Child), cited above, at [23]. First, the court has to decide whether the subject matter of the threatened publication would be such as to give rise to a "reasonable expectation of privacy" on the part of the applicant. In this case, as in so many others, there can be no doubt on that score. It is concerned with conduct of an intimate and sexual nature and, what is more, there has been no suggestion in this case that the relationship, for so long as it lasted, was conducted publicly. It is clear both from domestic and Strasbourg jurisprudence that such personal relationships are entitled to Article 8 protection: see e.g. the discussion in Mosley v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2008] EMLR 20, and in particular at [100] and at [125]-[132] and, for yet another decision of the Court of Appeal, in this context, see also ASG v GSA [2009] EWCA Civ 1574.

    24. Once that hurdle has been overcome, the next stage is for the court to weigh against the claimant's Article 8 rights, and any duty owed to him under the traditional law of confidence, whether it would be appropriate for those rights to be overridden by any countervailing considerations. In the present case, of course, it is necessary to weigh up the Article 10 rights of Ms Thomas, together with those of any journalists she has approached. Also, it is necessary to have regard to the public interest and to the right of citizens generally to receive information.

    25.I have to consider whether there would be a legitimate public interest in the revelation of this particular information, in so far as it is not already in the public domain, and whether publication would contribute to "a debate of general interest", in the sense conveyed by the European Court of Human Rights in such cases as Von Hannover v Germany (2005) 40 EHRR 1. Would it help to achieve some legitimate social purpose, such as the prevention or detection of crime? Or again, echoing the terminology of the Press Complaints Commission Code, would publication in some way prevent the public from being seriously misled?

    26. As in so many "kiss and tell" cases, it seems to me that the answer, at stage two, is not far to seek. Indeed, it was not even argued that publication would serve the public interest.
    38. Moreover, in so far as Ms Thomas wishes to exercise her Article 10 right by selling her life story, she is entitled to do so, but only subject to the qualification that she is not thereby relieved of any obligation of confidence she may owe, or free to intrude upon the privacy rights of others: see e.g. McKennitt v Ash, cited above, at [28]-[32] and [50]-[51]. In so far as there are any conflicts of evidence or of recollection between her and the Claimant, it will be for the court to resolve them at the appropriate time. I will discuss with counsel whether it would be appropriate to order a speedy trial for that purpose.

    The media in this case are not reporting what the actual decision was and much of the discussion is based in incorrect hearsay. Mr Justice Eady (turns out he's not an LJ yet) weighs up all of what you discuss: whether there's a reasonable expectation of privacy and whether it's in the public interest. It is very telling that the newspapers are wailing about "privacy by the back door" without addressing the judgment in question.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Interesting reading. If anything though it shows that there is a legitimate story there, just not the one she wanted. Basically one of extortion.

    He would have done better, IMHO, to come out with the victim approach of that and sought an injunction to protect his children. Instead this still comes across as him protecting his own image.

    However, all that said, I go back to my original point. This order prevents the reporting or anything in this story and so you end up with the situation where innocent people are named instead of the guilty parties. Fact is, Giggs *did* have a sexual relationship with her as we now know.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The thing is Artic Rolls arguments have been based in legal fact, not just his well thought out arguments.

    With Imogen, why is she telling her story to the press? Yes she should be free to tell her story but would she tell the papers or would they even be interested if there was not money involved?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There is also a difference between what people have a right to do, and what they have freedom to do.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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