Privacy and Injunctions - Evidence - Parliament

Terence Ewing—Written evidence
Presence of editors on the adjudication panel
22. The make up of the Commission consists of a number of editors of leading
newspapers and a token element of lay members; the Commission claim gives an
appearance of independence.
23. This is of course total nonsense, as it is clear that the editors themselves hold the
sway when the Commission deliberates, and they clearly influence the lay members to
go along with their way of thinking.
24. The editors may also well know the particular editor being complained against, and it
is a situation of editors judging other editors.
25. This type of undesirable situation has been remedied in respect of police complaints
with the setting up of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, to get rid of
the previous complaints by the public that police officers were investigating and judging
fellow police officers.
26. In addition, whilst it is accepted that the editor of a newspaper the subject of a
complaint to the Press Complaints Commission would not sit on the panel considering
that complaint, it must be the case that all of the editors who do sit on any
adjudication will at some stage have been the subject of unrelated complaints against
their own paper.
27. This creates a further appearance of lack of independence, by having editors sitting on
adjudication panels, when they may have been subjects of similar although unrelated
complaints to the Press Complaints Commission themselves.
28. The editors therefore sit on their own committee to judge complaints, when their
fellow editors actions are under scrutiny, and when other editors have been
responsible for drafting the Code of Conduct, and they may have had unrelated
complaints made against themselves.
Qualifications of editors and lay members on the adjudication panel
29. As an adjudicating body, neither the editors who sit on the adjudications or any of the
lay members are legally qualified.
30. It isn’t clear what legal assistance they have from the secretarial back up, although the
Commission does have solicitors.
31. It is understood that the solicitors don’t advise the members of the Commission in
respect of adjudications, and unlike lay Justices in the Magistrates’ Court the
Commission are therefore not advised by someone with legal qualifications as with the
case of Clerks to Justices.
32. It must follow that any adjudication say in respect of privacy issues, which as members
of the current Parliamentary Committee will know, has given rise to a large amount of
case law, including a decision in the House of Lords relating to the Naomi Campbell
289