13 Oct 09 | News and features, United Kingdom
Index on Censorship has learned that law firm Carter-Ruck has backed down in an attempt to stop media from reporting on a parliamentary question concerning a previous injunction. The gag had caused outrage on the Internet, with many Twitter users defying the injunction to post information on the case.
Update: Read the letter Index on Censorship sent to the courts in support of the Guardian here
13 Oct 09 | Uncategorized
In what seems to have already turned into one of the greatest own goals in the history of the legal profession, solicitors Carter-Ruck won an injunction yesterday, forbidding the reporting of a parliamentary question put by an MP, regarding another injunction.
It cannot be overstated how utterly contrary to democracy this development is. Representative democracy depends on the concept that parliamentarians can speak without fear, and the public can listen to and read what they say, whether sitting in the gallery or through print, broadcast and online media. Democracy, perhaps even more so than justice, must not just be practised: it must be seen to be practised.
That a judge should glibly overturn this concept, even temporarily, puts us truly in GUBU territory. This is, to quote the late Conor Cruise O’Brien, grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented.
The Guardian newspaper goes to court today in an effort to overturn this travesty. Anyone who believes in a free press, free expression and democracy must support their efforts.
Update: it didn’t go to court
13 Oct 09 | News and features, United Kingdom
Solicitors Carter-Ruck have successfully barred the Guardian newspaper from reporting a parliamentary question about an earlier injunction on reporting about a client’s activities. The Guardian has pledged to fight the injunction, with editor Alan Rusbridger saying: “The media laws in this country increasingly place newspapers in a Kafkaesque world in which we cannot tell the public anything about information which is being suppressed, nor the proceedings which suppress it. It is doubly menacing when those restraints include the reporting of parliament itself.”
31 Jul 09 | Index Index, minipost
The Guardian has published an apology and has settled out of court for an undisclosed amount with the South African President. The paper had described president Zuma in an article as a rapist. President Zuma, although brought to court for both rape and corruption was not convicted as guilty. Read more here
