Super-injunctions and Modern Reality

So super-injunctions, a quite recent phenomena, have now come under intense scrutiny here in the UK and exposed to the realities of modern life. Hurrah!

If someone is the victim of a super-injunction, they are not only restrained from doing a particular act (revealing the name of a well known person who is also a cheating husband, for example, “to protect the kids”) but is even gagged from complaining about it or even mentioning it to anyone, anywhere.

It truly is draconian, and more fitting to Stalinist Russia than England at any time.

Only the English legal system, heavily influenced by the Establishment that it exists to protect, could have ever come up with such a stupid concept.

Since I first entered the English legal profession (something that even now I am often embarrassed about having to admit – perhaps I’ll take out a super-injunction against it – LOL) 40 plus years ago I have come to realise that here in England we have the finest legal system money can buy.

Throughout its existence it has been manipulated by the rich to protect themselves from their own weaknesses and indiscretions, and has provided scant protection to those less fortunate in material terms.

The law of defamation (libel and slander) that is related closely to these super-injunctions, has regularly been used to silence valid criticism and exposure of the wealthy with the threat, not only of injunctions, but of financial ruin for the victim through the award of thousands of pounds in damages, if he lost the case.

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And in defamation cases, under the English legal system, literally anything can happen. I’ve seen it in my time as an English lawyer.

The rich have the power to sue for libel and the media have the power to libel ordinary folk who can’t afford to defend their reputations. Defamation actions are for the rich and the establishment-owned media only.

Here in England we’re supposed to be the home of freedom of speech and expression. It’s one of the freedoms that’s evoked when sending our young men and women off to fight in various futile foreign wars and get blown to pieces.

Yes, if we don’t fight the enemies of freedom in their own countries then before long we’ll have to fight them in our own country. Or so we’ve always been told.

Well, it seems now that the truth is coming out at last. The Establishment here, the lawyers, the judges, the political apparatchits and the financial elite don’t give a damn about freedom of expression, or any other freedoms come to that. They regularly use these oppressive laws to advance their own selfish interests.

“The real enemy is always behind you.” I can’t remember who first came out with that, but never was a truer word spoken.

We’ve found, in my opinion, an unlikely ally in the fight to preserve freedom of speech. Social media – Twitter, Facebook, and all the rest of the online community – are, unwittingly perhaps, striking a powerful blow for freedom in rendering all these super-injunctions meaningless.

And the most amazing thing about all this is how anyone – judges, celebrities, or anyone else involved (not the lawyers – they’re laughing all the way to the bank whatever happens) could really believe that a so-called super-injunction could preserve their anonymity and save them from exposure, when we live in a world of instant communications worldwide and where the rulings of British judges count for nothing outside these shores.

The judges involved in awarding these super-injunctions should be sacked immediately for gross stupidity and made to re-take their law exams before being allowed back into a courtroom. Anyone with half a brain could have seen this coming.

And as for a UK government minister announcing that he intended to promote legislation to “regulate Twitter”, well we can only wonder what planet all these people live on. Does he really think that San Francisco-based Twitter give a monkey’s about what the UK government may try to do to them?

So let’s hear it for freedom of expression, on and off the internet. And if you don’t want to risk the glare of publicity, and regret the demise of super-injunctions, then don’t get famous, or if you do then keep your trousers on.