Thursday 15 January 2009

Does the internet make privacy injunctions a 'ludicrous pantomime'?

That was the question posed by Clive Anderson on Radio 4's Unreliable Evidence last night.
Anderson argued that "those in the know, know" about famous people who have taken out privacy injunctions to stop newspapers publishing details about their private life and can easily find their names on the internet.
He suggested that such injunctions meant the courts were indulging in a "ludicrous pantomime" which meant "it was just the great unwashed that didn't know."
Anderson also suggested "we've arrived at an odd place" when a privacy injunction stopped a man from naming a famous person who had had an affair with his wife.
Former Telegraph legal correspondent Joshua Rozenberg revealed that some injunctions were framed so tightly that he could not even report that an injunction had been granted.
He warned that newspapers would become "reluctant to do an Insight-type investigation unless they can be absolutely sure they can get a good story they can publish without getting a privacy injunction."

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