An unprecedented attempt by a British oil trading firm to prevent the Guardian newspaper reporting parliamentary proceedings collapsed on Tuesday following a spontaneous online campaign to spread the information the paper had been barred from publishing — spotlighting the power of new media to influence public policy.
The case involving Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Paul Farrelly had threatened the rights of journalists to report anything debated in parliament. The law allows the media to report any comments made in parliament without fear of running afoul of Britain’s often draconian privacy and libel laws.
Carter-Ruck, the law firm representing the Netherlands-registered oil trading company Trafigura, was accused of infringing the supremacy of parliament after it insisted that an injunction obtained against the Guardian prevented the paper from reporting questions Farrelly tabled on Monday.
Farrelly’s written questions were about the implications for press freedom of a High Court injunction obtained on Sept. 11 by Trafigura preventing the Guardian and other media from publishing the contents of a report related to the dumping of toxic waste at sites throughout Abidjan in the Ivory Coast.
The Guardian was prevented from identifying Farrelly, reporting the nature of his question, which company had sought the gag, or even which order was constraining its coverage.
The paper honored the injunction, but put a story on its Web site on Monday and in Tuesday’s edition reporting that it has been prevented from discussing parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds — without naming the players in the case.
The blogosphere erupted in outrage. Bloggers and Twitter users exchanged data on who the case may involve. Through a series of postings that implied — but didn’t directly link — the Guardian to its long-running dispute with Trafigura, the blogosphere pieced together the basic facts of the question and the law firm that sought the injunction.
By Tuesday morning, the terms Trafigura, Carter-Ruck and Guardian were all listed as being among the most-used terms on Twitter and the full text had been published on two prominent blogs as well as in the magazine Private Eye. By the afternoon, Carter-Ruck backed down and agreed that the newspaper could publish details of Farrelly’s question.
“Luckily, it seems that Trafigura and Carter-Ruck had not reckoned with the power of the Internet,” said Padraig Reidy, news editor at Index on Censorship magazine. “There is an impulse among Web users that as soon as they are told they cannot know about something, they seek out the details.”
The Guardian is still forbidden by the terms of the existing injunction, granted by a vacation duty judge to give further information about the Minton report, or its contents.
Trafigura did not accept legal liability for the incident, but last month agreed to compensate 30,000 people for “flu-like symptoms” they might have suffered following the dumping. It has always insisted that the waste was not toxic, but had a mix of gasoline residues, water and caustic sodas used for cleaning.
The use of “super injunctions,” under which companies claim the right to keep secret the fact that they have been to court, has been growing.
MPs from all three major parties condemned the firm’s attempt to prevent the reporting of parliamentary proceedings.
Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris told parliament there was a need to “control the habit of law firms” of obtaining secrecy injunctions, and his colleague David Heath told the Commons a “fundamental principle” was being threatened: that MPs should be able to speak freely and have their words reported freely.
Conservative MP David Davis criticized the rising use of “super-injunctions,” in which the fact of the injunction is itself kept secret. He said courts should not be allowed to grant injunctions forbidding the reporting of parliament.
Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Jack Straw was scheduled to respond to Farrelly’s question during yesterday’s session of parliament.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia