Judges have their role to play, and Parliamentarians theirs, and “it is for the public to judge whether what I have done is right or wrong”, says Lord Peter Hain. Yet since Lord Hain chose to breach the court injunction issued by the Court of Appeal in ABC v Telegraph Group plc by hiding behind Parliamentary privilege, this is exactly what the public does not get to do. Read the rest of this entry »
Lord Hain and Privilege: When power, wealth and abuse combine to subvert the rule of law – Paul Wragg
27 10 2018Comments : 14 Comments »
Tags: Lord Hain, Paul Wragg
Categories : Injunction, Legal, Privacy
Why Sir Cliff Richard’s case was rightly decided: Part 2: The public interest balance – Thomas Bennett
2 08 2018
This critique follows on from my previous post, in which I responded to Paul Wragg’s criticism of the manner in which the judge in Richard v BBC dealt with the first stage of the claim – whether Richard had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in respect of the information broadcast about him. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 7 Comments »
Tags: Paul Wragg, Public Interest, Sir Cliff Richard, Thomas Bennett
Categories : Broadcasting, Freedom of expression, Media, Privacy
Why Sir Cliff Richard’s case was rightly decided: Part 1: Reasonable expectation of privacy – Thomas Bennett
31 07 2018
In a recent post on Inforrm, my good friend Dr Paul Wragg sets out a detailed argument critiquing the High Court’s recent decision in Cliff Richard’s successful privacy claim against the BBC (Richard v BBC). Wragg takes the view that the reasoning of Mann J in the case is deficient in a number of respects, and that his disposal of the case is unsatisfactory. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 7 Comments »
Tags: Paul Wragg, Sir Cliff Richard, Thomas Bennett
Categories : Broadcasting, Freedom of expression, Privacy
Why Sir Cliff Richard’s case was wrongly decided – Paul Wragg
22 07 2018
There are three reasons why I think the case of Sir Cliff Richard v BBC is wrongly decided. Firstly, it seems to me that whilst a wrong has been done to Sir Cliff, this was committed by the police when it, or someone within it, disclosed information to the BBC that Sir Cliff was being investigated as part of Operation Yewtree (it must be stressed that the CPS announced on 16 June 2016 that no charges would be made against Sir Cliff and that, as was said in court, ‘he is an innocent man in the eyes of the law’). Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 20 Comments »
Tags: Paul Wragg, Sir Cliff Richard
Categories : Broadcasting, Freedom of expression
The Duty to Hack, Steal and Betray Confidences? Press Freedom and the ‘Paradise Papers’ affair – Paul Wragg
27 03 2018
The BBC and the Guardian are being sued for breach of confidence for their part in the ‘Paradise Papers’ affair in which some 6.8 million documents were stolen (but not by the defendants) from Appleby Global Group LLC, a law firm operating outside the UK. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: Paradise Papers, Paul Wragg
Categories : Journalism, Media, Privacy
Silencing the President: the Free Speech implications of censoring hateful political speech online – Paul Wragg
17 03 2018
Something incredible is happening in modern politics. The shackles of propriety, diplomacy, and discretion have been released. Politicians are speaking their minds. This has not resulted, as so many commentators tell us it has, in statesmen ‘telling it like it is’. Instead, political debate is awash with vacuous, bewildering, abrasive guff. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: Britain First, Paul Wragg
Categories : Freedom of expression, Social Media
Privacy and the end of innocence: An alternative perspective on Khuja (formerly PNM) v Times Newspapers – Robert Craig
27 07 2017
This post follows Paul Wragg’s piece on this blog discussing the recent Supreme Court decision determining that the applicant had no right to anonymity after being named in open court by a witness in a high profile criminal case in Oxford. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 5 Comments »
Tags: Paul Wragg, PNM, Robert Craig
Categories : Injunction, Open Justice, Privacy
Distinguishing harm from misuse in privacy law: Khuja v Times Newspapers – Paul Wragg
22 07 2017
The long-awaited judgment in Khuja (formerly known as PNM) v Times Newspapers Limited is the right decision. But it was not unanimously decided. It is on the dissenting judgments of Lords Kerr and Wilson that this post focuses. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: Paul Wragg, PNM, Times
Categories : Injunction, Open Justice, Privacy
Don’t believe what you read: section 40 will protect the local press, not kill it – Paul Wragg
14 01 2017
Anyone interested in journalism who has been reading the UK’s national press over the past week or two could be forgiven for thinking press freedom is in serious jeopardy. It’s one of those rare occasions when Fleet Street seems to speak as one. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 6 Comments »
Tags: Consultation, Local Press, Paul Wragg, Section 40, The Conversation
Categories : Leveson Inquiry, Media Regulation
The Martyrdom of Press Freedom: What Recognition of IMPRESS means and why the press fears It – Paul Wragg
13 11 2016
Press regulation is changing. On 29 October 2016, IMPRESS was officially recognised as the UK’s first ‘Leveson-compliant’ regulator. This is a momentous occasion. But recognition has been met with uniform hostility from the mainstream press. The Daily Mail was not alone in decrying the event as ‘an end to 300 years of press freedom’. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments : 7 Comments »
Tags: IMPRESS, IPSO, Paul Wragg
Categories : Leveson Inquiry, Media Regulation
