Alarming news from the Guardian tonight http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/12/guardian-gagged-from-reporting-parliament who say that they have been banned from reporting the text of a Parliamentary Question, which is published on the parliament website, and covered by parliamentary privilege.
Lawyers Carter Ruck have secured an injunction which prevents the reporting of this written Question to the Secretary of State for Justice:
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.
Carter Ruck are acting as a menace to democracy. If you have a twitter account please post a link to question 61 at http://bit.ly/cpIn5, using the hashtags #Trafigura and #CarterRuck.

Alarming news from the Guardian tonight who say that they have been banned from reporting the text of a Parliamentary Question, which is published on the parliament website, and covered by parliamentary privilege.

Lawyers Carter Ruck have secured an injunction which prevents the reporting of this written Question to the Secretary of State for Justice:

Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

Carter Ruck are behaving like  a menace to democracy. If you have a twitter account please post a link to question 61 at http://bit.ly/cpIn5, using the hashtags #Trafigura and #CarterRuck.

Leave aside for the moment that trying to injunct information which has been published online is like trying to plug a seive one hole at a time, you may say ‘does it matter? Isn’t Parliament full of expenses fiddling crooks anyway?’ Well, yes it does matter… If any legal outfit is allowed to get away with obscuring or concealing the work of an elected Parliament from the people who elected it, then the potential consequences are far reaching and deeply serious for the politics of this country.

Carter Ruck have gone much too far in this ill-judged attempt to stand between people and Parliament. The injunction must be overturned, and if there’s a decent person anywhere at the top of that company, they’ll publicly apologise for their actions.

[PS I'm indebted to Steven Barnett for pointing me to the Wikileaks account of the Carter Ruck injunction, and for reminding me that there are still questions over the conduct of Barclays]