Insanity Rules: UK Judge Says Mass Revealing Of Ryan Giggs Name Means Injunction Is Even More Necessary
from the wtf? dept
It is difficult to comprehend just how out of touch UK judges appear to be on the issue of these speech-blocking injunctions that the rich and famous are taking out in weak attempts to protect their actions from scrutiny. Yesterday, we noted that MP John Hemming had named Ryan Giggs as the person who had taken out an injunction concerning an affair with Imogen Thomas, confirming what pretty much all of the internet already knew. Many have assumed this meant "game over" for the injunction. And, that's an entirely reasonable and logical response.Except, apparently, to UK judges.
Glyn Moody directs our attention to the latest ruling from the judge concerning that injunction, which is just three paragraphs of stunning inanity, arguing that the widespread knowledge of Gigg's situation is only further evidence of the need for the injunction, to prevent "harassment." Here's the entire ruling:
Mr Justice Tugendhat :Yes, read this again: "The fact that tens of thousands of people have named the claimant on the internet confirms that the claimant and his family need protection from intrusion into their private and family life. The fact that a question has been asked in Parliament seems to me to increase, and not to diminish the strength of his case that he and his family need that protection." There seems to be a ridiculous level of cognitive dissonance from "Mr Justice Tugendhat" who doesn't seem to recognize that the only reason why Giggs has been named so widely is because of the ridiculous injunction. If such an injunction had never been issued, then no such "harassment" would have occurred. And, is it really "harassment" to have someone accurate report something you did?
At about 1430 this afternoon Eady refused NGN's application to remove the anonymity he had granted to the claimant on 20 April. He said at para 23 ([2011] EWHC 1326 (QB)) that "It is important always to remember that the modern law of privacy is not concerned solely with secrets: it is also concerned importantly with intrusion". Intrusion in this sense includes harassment.
Very shortly afterwards a name was mentioned by Mr Hemming MP in the House of Commons in the course of a question which was interrupted by the Speaker. On that basis NGN asked me to hear a further application shortly after 5pm for the anonymity of the claimant to be removed. As the public now know, anyone who wanted to find out the name of the claimant could have learnt it many days ago. The reason is that it is has been repeated thousands of times on the internet. NGN now want to join in.
It is obvious that if the purpose of this injunction were to preserve a secret, it would have failed in its purpose. But in so far as its purpose is to prevent intrusion or harassment, it has not failed. The fact that tens of thousands of people have named the claimant on the internet confirms that the claimant and his family need protection from intrusion into their private and family life. The fact that a question has been asked in Parliament seems to me to increase, and not to diminish the strength of his case that he and his family need that protection. The order has not protected the claimant and his family from taunting on the internet. It is still effective to protect them from taunting and other intrusion and harassment in the print media.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: free speech, injunction, ryan giggs, uk
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
what I think what we need
This judge fights quite a Don Quixotic fight against a moronic injunction.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
BTW, I'm a US citizen and have a right to publicly express my opinion. So how is the UK courts going to deal with that one?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"Twitter cannot be allowed to operate outside the law"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/24/twitter-ryan-giggs-social-media
Read it and weep. God, we're so out of touch, it's amazing that a UK resident had the foresight to come up with the WWW in the first place. I despair of my country.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
WWW, not Internet :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Web=short for World Wide Web, the sites you view over the HTTP and HTTPS protocols.
Infrastructure=hardware.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
In the UK today...
Something amiss there?
(No naming He Who Shall Not Be Named for me, 'cos as a resident of the UK, I don't want the privacy police on my case, national news getting away with it or not)
:)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: In the UK today...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: In the UK today...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: In the UK today...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: In the UK today...
And being Australian I don't really give a flying f**k who Ryan Griggs is or who he has shagged, but these so called super injunctions make for super hilarity and like most Aussies I will give the royal one fingered salute to most English Toffs and speak about any idiot I want
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: In the UK today...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
someone point the judge to Google
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: someone point the judge to Google
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
A wealthy British financier is seeking to have his sister-in-law secretly jailed in a libel case, in the latest escalation of the controversy over superinjunctions and the internet, the Guardian can disclose.
Brits, time to buck up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
The ZAM case isn't a super-injunction (using the legal definition) as, for starters, there is a public judgment.
To be blunt, if she is breaking a court order, of course she is liable to go to prison. Secondly, if she is blackmailing him, she could go to jail for that as well. In either case, though, I imagine a judge would be very unlikely to grant anonymity to someone they're locking up.
Having said all that, as unwilling as I am to criticise UK judges (given the unjustified attacks they're getting from the press and world in general, for simply applying Parliament's orders) I do think Tugendhat J may have gone too far in the ZAM case.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Harassment
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
As for this ruling, the key part is the end:
Combine that with what Lord Neuberger said on Friday:
and you can kind of see where they are coming from. Yes, they are aware that once something is on the Internet it will spread, and the more you try to remove it, the more it will spread. However, they also know that, for now, at least, the biggest threat comes from the newspapers. A few thousand people may follow the stuff on Twitter (mainly those who would find out some way or another anyway), but the front page of the tabloids will get millions of people talking about it.
As for the "suing Twitter" stuff, what the judges are saying isn't that Twitter must follow the UK law (and the Guardian comment piece linked above is written by someone who doesn't have a clue; two factual errors in the caption of the image alone), but that UK users of Twitter must follow UK law, and in particular, when a Court tells newspapers not to do something, they shouldn't just go on Twitter and do it there instead. Since when did it become acceptable to break basic principles of criminal law (like not interfering with ongoing cases) simply because you can get away with it technologically?
As a final point, it is worth highlighting what Eady J said in his judgment in this case yesterday:
The only insanity in this situation is coming from the press (who are downright lying about stuff) and politicians, openly breaking the law (which they can do) and their own rules, more interested in scoring points than debating a real issue.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
I thought it was specifically the couts' place to determine unenforcability, as a check on the Legislature and Executive Branch.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
To an extent, but it's more that the Court should say be telling Parliament to change the law when it doesn't work - and also this is a lowly High Court judge; he really shouldn't be messing with the law.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
So... how's it working out?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
[Remember, this is the same press who were consistently breaking the law on phone-tapping for 10 years and are trying to deflect attention from that.]
Monday evening's judgment (the one this refers to) goes a little too far, perhaps, in finally splitting off misuse of private information from breach of confidence, but it still works quite well.
What the problem is, is that we have politicians who aren't willing to put in place stronger rules against the tabloid press (because they rely on them for coverage). The press are holding Parliament to ransom, so Parliament can't act; leaving the Courts stuck doing the dirty work.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
So, people on Twitter are the 'tabloid press?' Arguable, but not ultimately a winning argument.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
OR just make a contra mundum order. Simple! ;)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
Our superinjunctions are just as bad. A financier wants a secret jailing of a family member for DARING to mention anything about him? So it's one law for the rich ("Awwww I'll cry [to a lawyer] if someone says a bad word about me or takes a less-than-flattering photo") and one law for the poor (who can't afford these things and can get reported on by the newspapers any time they like)? Bah humbug.
The law is a badly applied turkey, and needs to join this century and catch up with technology - and social attitudes. No-one cares nowadays that someone is born to an unwed mother, or that said mother is unwed - but they do care when someone rich/famous/should-be-obscure-but-is-Russell-Brand makes a total arse of themselves, especially if they are a hypocrite about it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
Translation of Governmentese: All your pages are belong to us.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
It would appear, from the outpouring on the internet, that you severely underestimate the number of people in the UK who do care about freedom of speech.
And, while you may believe my position is US-centric, it is not. It is free speech centric. I believe that's a key value that *should* be global. That you may choose to censor yourself, is no excuse for censoring others.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
To have 100's of journalist's camped outside waiting for you is definitely harrassment.
This is what the injunctions were trying to prevent....in a way (a very poor way). By preventing the papers from breaking/reporting the story it also prevented them from camping outside the house of the family as this would give the game away (even if it was already out on Twitter, etc).
While I like the ideal of free speech I also see the need to limit the press' intrusion into peoples lives to some extent. I.e they can write as much as they want and publish what they want but they must not camp outside said persons house or follow them everywhere they go!
It would appear, from the outpouring on the internet, that you severely underestimate the number of people in the UK who do care about freedom of speech.
Mike people like to spread gossip, not everyone that spread the news on the internet was championing free speech (some probably were)
The good thing about this whole situation is it might lead to the reform of some of these laws to make them more in line with reality and technology.
The bad thing that may happen (chilling even) is that MP's could lose (or find limited) their right to parlimentary protection because of the MP revealing gigg's name.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: I do wish people would try looking at the facts...
If you don't want family harrassed, get an appropriate injunction. Properly evidenced.
If you don't want your family embarrassed, keep it in your trousers, and don't appear to be using your loadsa money to shut up anyone whistleblowing on you.
I feel extremely sorry for his wife and kids, but he's the one who did the dirty (and not just once), and he's the one that has paraded them in public making something of his 'family' credentials. I just hope his wife gets a good lawyer (she should maybe ask Maria Shriver?). Maybe she can sue him for embarassment/harrassment herself.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Judge
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"You can't say that!"
"Who are you?"
"I'M THE GODDAMN BATMAN."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
i know how to destroy these injunctions
the only way to DENY the claims is to go public....failure to do so looks like guilt.....and when your name DOES come out, ppl will remember the random accusation as being true.....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
just print
the only things he can do is either say "hey don't libel me"....and admit hes the anonymous figure OR shut the hell up and take the false accusation!
Its also nice to see someone famous basically obliterate their ENTIRE career in one sentence by saying that its better that 75,000 people should go to jail and have their lives ruined, than find out he stuck his winky into someone elses hoohaa that wasn't his wife's hoohaa.......
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I probably am, oh well.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Logic Rules OK!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Harassment
That is the "harassment" which is being referred to, not the idea of papers reporting it.
Giggs knows we all know it is him.
If this had all come out with no superinjunction it would still have been big enough news to get his family pestered by the press. (Though this has undoubtedly made it worse).
I'd have preferred that the injunction simply addressed the real situation and sought to ban media organisations from within 100 yards of his family (who are the victims). Which is all it has really been achieving of late.
On another point, even if twitter was UK based, I don't see how you can sue someone for tweeting this.
If they don't know it is true for sure then they are guessing/speculating, and that can't be the same as wilfully revealing details. If it's legally secret, how am I supposed to know who it is ? How can I know when I retweet if I am breaking the injunction or not ? A law that I cannot legally find out whether I am breaking, is surely a stupid law.
Maybe it comes down to tweeter zero, the first person to tweet it. Yet if they are not in a priveleged position to know the info behind the injunction, they are just speculating too.
Put another way, if I tweet the identity of all the top 50 footballers, guessing it must be one of them, am I guilty of 49 libels and 1 injuction breaking? And if I have the right to know the charges against me, doesn't someone have to break the law to tell me what I did wrong ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Why?
The thing I can't get my head around is why anyone who has slept with Imogen Thomas would want to cover it up, rather than broadcast it to the world!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
however
This would put the RIAA and other scum out of business....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]