Any legitimate concern about injunctions or their frequency, and about open justice, can be dealt with easily by a periodic release of statistical information on the number of injunctions, the type of injunction, the sex of the claimant and the type of subject matter (whether medical, sex, child etc.). It could also include information such as whether there was a media defendant, whether the public interest was argued, and whether the claimant was a politician, businessperson or some other well-known person.
It isn’t necessary to publish information about specific cases contemporaneously, nor to publish to the world at large at any time the “not so basic” details of a specific case, in the way that the courts have started to do. The Practice Direction can be amended to oblige practitioners to provide the required basic information to a central office in the High Court. Transparency is possible through statistics without needing to draw attention to individuals at the time they obtain the injunction.
In reality the media never made an application to discharge a “super-injunction” – despite the fact that they were fully aware of their terms (having been served with each one). Further, the rhetoric about public interest in reporting is, in fact, hypocritical – as the tabloid media has no interest in reporting the legal issues, only the “tittle tattle”. For example, when the first privacy injunction was dealt with in open court, it only attracted one small paragraph in a single newspaper.
There is no doubt in my mind that the reason the tabloids pushed for the ability to publish private information and to do it contemporaneously was to make injunctions less effective or at worst, ineffective. It was not really because the public at large were actually concerned about super-injunctions. The real question to ask is whether the current regime dissuades individuals from turning to the law to protect their human rights because the risks are far too great. It has clearly had a deterrent effect, as is evidenced by the almost wholesale reduction in applications (not that there were factory levels of injunctions to start with), and, as lots of tabloid commentators are only too pleased to announce to the world at large.
In respect of open justice, there is obviously tension between total transparency on the one hand and an individual’s privacy rights on the other. I repeat, however, that we are only talking about cases where the public interest is not found to outweigh the particular privacy rights. Why should an individual in such a scenario have their rights eroded so severely because of inflated and largely artificial concerns about open justice?
Courts can provide private judgments that are capable of being scrutinised by the media upon the provision of suitable undertakings to the court. If the media feel sufficiently strongly about the judgment, they can apply to the court to rectify the position. They can oppose an injunction application before it happens if they are put on notice, which they must be if it is known that they have a direct interest in the matter. They can even apply to set an injunction aside or to vary it at a return date once they have been given notice. Return dates happen within days after an interim injunction is granted, so I don’t see how this will prejudice a media defendant. There are in fact countless ways in which the media can test or oppose an injunction without eroding or eradicating the individual’s privacy rights until such time as the courts rule in the media’s favour. Besides, they can do it all as the eyes and ears of the public, thereby negating legitimate open-justice concerns.
My view is that if the courts wish to provide practical protection to privacy rights, they will have to lock horns with the tabloids and risk being criticised by them in the process. There is an historic opportunity here to stand up for privacy rights. I can’t think of a better time to do so. Remember, as we have already seen with phone hacking, it can be a slippery slope if we don’t. Today it’s a celebrity whose privacy is invaded for tabloid consumption and tittle-tattle; tomorrow it’s yours and mine. It’s time to take stand.
Judith Townend raises an additional, very interesting issue about how financial transactions in private information should be dealt with in a new system of regulation. This is a complex and difficult question which I would like to deal with in a separate post.
Gideon Benaim is a partner at Michael Simkins LLP and specialises in reputation protection