How British libel law lets bad people get away with bad things

by Garfie489

1 comment
  1. How interesting that they don’t query « privacy » as the characterisation of keeping wrongdoing secret. It used to mean things like your … private information. Medical personal type stuff.

    Then some clever men said rights that developed from the ECHR right not to have the state interfere in your home and correspondence became a right to prevent anyone reporting anything you want kept secret. They publicly celebrated their creation of the « tort «  of breach of privacy.

    The law until the clever development of the « tort » of privacy protected confidential information, and that did not include secrets about « iniquity ». It didn’t help people hide sexual or financial offences. There were rules of defamation but the excesses there were curtailed by rules on injunctions and the 2013 Act.

    Rampant « privacy » rights took up the slack and have no defence of truth and so offenders can get injunctions to protect their « privacy ». One wonders why judges would want that ..

    Injunctions override everything. They are court orders. Even if they are legally wrong, they are valid as orders. If a bad person gets an injunction, the court is on their side. Because the court now protects those secrets and will threaten people with prison for reporting.

    There have been some very interesting cases of lawyers and courts developing this. Philip Green’s case for example. The claim was and is that the Court of Appeal said contracts to cover up evidence of wrongdoing are enforceable. That not only enables coverups of sex offences (no surprise Harvey Weinstein had London solicitors) but also enables money laundering and operates against everyone.

    The record of the Law Society hiring QCs to assist the European Natural Resources Corporation is remarkable. The whole saga of their fight with the Serious Fraud Office is fascinating. Only ended coincidentally on the day after the death of that Mr Prigozhin.

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