Firstly we need to bring to an end the abuses of the legal system which can create the ludicrous situation which happened with the Guardian: the UK needs to confirm quite explicitly in law its adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights and the consequential fact that citizens of EU nations have an absolute right to information about and access to reports on the processes of government and their elected representatives’ activities on their behalf, as confirmed by a judgement earlier this year by the European Court of Human Rights in a case filed against the Hungarian Government

We need to confirm in law that the media have both a right and a duty to the public to report matters in The House without restriction.
See http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/PressFreedom/ and add your voice.

Secondly we need to make changes to the law of defamation to prevent habitual litigants abusing the legal system to silence legitimate criticism or the publication of truth Such uses of the law are nothing more than covert censorship.

There are various classic cases, of which Trafigura’s recent activities are examples, but perhaps the most egregious defamation case currently outstanding is the case against Simon Singh arising from an article he wrote about chiropractic. Such cases are not only wasteful of legal resource, they’re also exceptionally costly and damage still further the declining reputation of the UK’s legal system.

Gird your loins folks: this is going to be a long battle, and be assured, it’s not one we can afford to lose.

I would probably tend towards the former as the Guardian probably has a higher percentage of readers who use Twitter and the like.

I must admit whilst reading the Guardian’s piece on the injunction (or not on the injunction as it were) I couldn’t help but think of State of Play (the BBC series, haven’t seen the film version) where the paper uncovers a conspiracy perpetuated by a major oil company and covered up by people in parliament but has an injunction banning them from printing anything. So they just fill the first 6 pages with large print explaining that they couldn’t print their story.

If you haven’t seen the series you really should. It’s brilliantly written, acted and plotted.

Mike

First the ‘Save the Observer’ campaign, now this… The Guardian is getting *really* good at viral marketing.

Thanks.