10 May 2011

Social Divide and the Super Injunction

The super-injunction, tool of the rich and famous, so special you can't even mention it exists.

I prefer law that is tangiable and definable. Recent debacles over peoples' sex lives don't interest me beyond Fleet Street bar gossip, but I do take the freedom of the press seriously.

As Maxwell Mosely goes to the ECHR, we are presented with a conundrum. If press have to notify before publication, then Freedom of Speech is comprimised. To decide to do so would result in the an automatically created right of passage for the rich to protect themselves, while mere mortals suffer.

Rather like defamatory actions, to allow any part of the law to be accessible only to the rich goes against the rule of law founding principle.

But now the ECHR must further confuse this by answering a priority of human rights. Which is more important? Freedom of Speech or Right to Privacy?

And where does right to privacy end and right to scrutiny or public interest begin?

One could argue the law is based on a system of each case on it's merits; but it's merits should not include whoever can pay to protect themselves.

The government in the UK is unlikely to revoke legal aid reductions, but will be extremely unlikely to challenge the rich-proxy of injunctions and libel. Therefore they are likely to use whatever the ECHR decides as a principle and get out of the responsibility of deciding at all.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

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