It took the delightful Ryan Giggs dipping his toes in waters he shouldn’t, for the issue of superinjunctions to come to wide attention. This is a double-edged sword; on the one hand it’s an issue that did, without a doubt, lack the proper discussion it deserved. On the other hand it’s now forever tarnished with the brush of naughty footballers and sordid extra-marital affairs. In reality, the situation is so much more serious than this.
In early 2010 a superinjunction was granted by the courts to prevent the press reporting on claims that oil giant Trafigura were dumping toxic waste in waters along the Ivory Coast. And it wasn’t just the media that were gagged; Parliament was prevented from speaking about the case, in direct breach of the 1689 Bill of Rights. The order was swiftly overturned, but it began an unstoppable wave of courts interpreting and implementing privacy law in whichever way they please.
According to the Guardian, around thirty superinjunctions exist in the UK (though, of course, it’s exceptionally difficult to place a figure on it), with at least one more relating to an incident of water pollution, and one referring to a right-to-die case.
Footballers’ shadowy shagging is only the grubby tip of a very large, and very dangerous, iceberg. John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP responsible for naming Ryan Giggs in Parliament, has stated that his main concern when doing so was for those who had already named him on Twitter. For those who tweeted or retweeted Giggs’ name could be subject to the terrifying process of secret prosecution. These individuals could be arrested, charged and even imprisoned, without their names ever being released. The press would be banned from attending their trials, and the individuals themselves prevented from speaking out about their experience.
This is the crux of the superinjunction problem. Remember being taught not to lie when you were younger, told that one lie lead to another? The same is true of secrets.
The most frustrating part of a superinjunction is that in their current manifestation they are totally and utterly pointless. Journalists on the nationals are told the facts of the case they’re prohibited from reporting on, and they discuss it with each other. They go home and tell their family, who tell their friends, and eventually one of them will mention it on Twitter. The Twitterverse spreads the story to the rest of the world, and soon enough the news is out there. Only this way, the proper method of news dissemination, the press, has been gagged, and the rumour mill abounds in a way that could have been prevented had the media reported the story responsibly in the first place.
It’s a frustratingly familiar process for a campus hack. Last week saw the brief existence of Twitter account ‘YUSUperinjunctions’, which claimed to report on the stories that campus media are prevented from touching. In reality, it didn’t live up to expectations, and after a branding issue the account was removed by Twitter. Besides, I wouldn’t wish to draw some overblown, sweeping comparison between superinjunctions and the censorship (for want of a better word) of the Students Union.
In an admission quite controversial for a campus hack – I get it. I get why YUSU stop us from reporting on certain stories. I sure as hell don’t like it, but I get it. The reasons are complex and numerous, ranging from welfare considerations to binding legalities, but I’m pretty sure a malicious desire to rob our campus of freedom of the press is not one of them. Let me make one thing clear, however; these aren’t lascivious tales of the Sabbs’ sex lives (that’s what the gossip column is for), they’re weighty and significant stories, and had @YUSUperinjunctions been able to break them, all the better.
But the point is, when we return to the office disheartened because our strong front page story has been pulled by the Powers That Be, we console each other with reassurances that, one day, we’ll be working the nationals, and no one will be censoring what we write.
These days, however, that idyllic future is looking less certain. When John Hemming stood up and uttered Ryan Giggs’ name the shocked reaction was so fierce you’d be forgiven for assuming Giggs was some sort of cross between Voldemort and Beetle Juice. He opened the floodgates for the tabloid press to splash stories of He Who Must Not Be Named across their pages. It led to Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, undertaking an inquiry into privacy law, the results of which will soon be published.
But he also did something much more fundamental – he questioned what he was told under no circumstances to question. And that’s something this wannabe journalist can only ever endorse.
YUSUperinjunction was not closed down by twitter; it was reactivated after she/he sought advise on the matter. It really does no harm, though it should. The numerous and wide ranging “reasons” for not allowing the press to report on a story certainly do not subtract from what is essentially the very worst kind of 1984 censorship – where everybody knows, but cannot say.