A free Press?

Dominic Grieve Tory MP for Beaconsfield and Attorney General gave a speech at City University last Thursday evening on the reporting of parliament. He warned that journalists who report MPs comments which breach a court injunction may not be protected by privilege.

His speech was a bold attack on the freedom of the press to report the procedures and debates held in Parliament.

Lib Dem MP John Hemming has used parliamentary privilege to expose Ryan Giggs in parliament who was protected by a court injunction preventing his mistress being revealed thereby 'outing' him in the press and rendering the court order useless. In April he also defended a woman using parliamentary privilege who was later labelled 'a liar' by a judge.

His actions provoked a fierce debate as to whether he had 'abused' parliamentary privilege and if the press were right to repeat his words when they inadvertently revealed the identity of a child. Hemming sees his actions as part of a campaign to end the secrecy of the courts.

Speaking last Thursday evening, Grieve said, "It ill serves the Parliamentary process if court orders are openly flouted for no good reason."

"It is not for a Parliamentarian to ignore the careful and measured approach of a Judge when deciding if an injunction should be granted.

The UK does not currently have a privacy law apart from the Human Rights Act and celebrities often rely on injunctions against the press to protect their interests and reputation. When an MP chooses to use parliamentary privilege to reveal the identity of someone who has obtained an injunction they assume the powers of the judge and this raises serious constitutional questions. It also raises issues around freedom of speech for MPs and the press. There are also matters which arise from uninterrupted television coverage of Parliament which broadcasts the MP revealing the subject of the injunction.

Dominic Grieve continued: "...Just because something has been said does not mean it can be repeated out of context. It was still an open question whether something said in Parliament in breach of a court order could be repeated in the press."

"This question has yet to be authoritatively decided but will shortly be considered further by Parliament...But in the interim - writer beware."

John Hemming MP said yesterday: "The Attorney General reports correctly on the current position of the law. Only parliament can control the reporting of parliament, but people are not necessarily protected by parliamentary privilege upon repeating what is said in parliament. However, the law of confidentiality remains the same as in the Spycatcher case. When something is in the public domain it is not confidential.

In the case of Ryan Giggs, whose name had appeared on the front page of the Sunday Herald, his name was already fairly and squarely in the public domain. Otherwise people may be better advised to report precisely what is said in parliament if they wish protection by parliamentary privilege."

Mike Jempson from the charity 'Media Wise' which exists to help victims of 'media abuse' said: "In the internet age, if injunctions are broken under parliamentary privilege it should be possible for the public to discover what has been said by whom about whom, without journalists being put at risk of prosecution. MPs should have very good reason for breaching an injunction, but then injunctions should not be granted without very good reason for protecting a person or persons especially those (like children) vulnerable through no fault of their own.

One major problems is that injunctions tend to be sought and granted to people with substantial financial resources; that should not be the basis on which protection is granted."

At the moment there is an 'open question' as to whether the press are protected when repeating an expose of a court injunction in parliament but the issue looks set to be resolved by the government in the near future.