Privacy and Injunctions - Evidence - Parliament

Alex Hall and Charlotte Harris, partner, Mishcon de Reya solicitors, and solicitor to Alex
Hall—Oral evidence (QQ 1629–1731)
and defend yourself, so it coming out on Twitter does not help. The only people who would
be aided by it coming out on Twitter would be those who wanted to preserve the impact of
a perishable news item—“Get it out on Twitter, then we can immediately have our
exclusive.” It does not really apply if you have something like a book.
Also, if the claimant has gone to the expense of—sometimes rightly—getting out an
interim injunction, having that injunction that has been properly granted by a judge in a
democratic society tweeted about and having everyone turn round and say, “Well, it just
shows that the law is an ass”, does not help. The law is an ass if there has been no trial and
no proper evidence examined. The people who leak injunctions on Twitter have not been
party to the proper evidence, nor do I believe that they have done the proper balancing
exercise. Their taking the law into their own hands is stressful for the defendant. In Alex’s
case, are you going to be blamed? What will happen? Is someone going to cause you a
problem where you could be in contempt? It is also very stressful and confusing for a
claimant who has rightly got an injunction.
Q1718 Lord Janvrin: Is your conclusion, therefore, that super-injunctions would
be a better way to prevent that happening?
Charlotte Harris: No. Super-injunctions are different from injunctions. Superinjunctions
mean that no one even knows that proceedings are there, and they are hardly
ever used. Anonymised injunctions mean that people know that they are there. The
problem with anonymised injunctions is that people start a guessing game and sometimes
you end up with it on Twitter, but I do not think that the solution is to have more superinjunctions—I
think that is worse. The solution is that we have to have proper sanctions and
take the existing law seriously.
Q1719 Lord Janvrin: That contradicts what you have in your written submission.
Charlotte Harris: It is Alex’s written submission; not mine.
Alex Hall: If you have anonymised injunctions, which are just a set of initials, that
incites curiosity, so off it goes.
Q1720 Eric Joyce: Some people make a distinction between people who have
knowledge of the original injunction and the many people who re-tweet and do not have
such knowledge. It seemed to be that you were saying that it was not your side who put it
out. Someone did—someone who was party to the information—so are you saying that it
was him?
Charlotte Harris: No, I am not saying that at all. You have to have a guessing game.
Making accusations when you do not know the information is totally wrong. You have to
take a forensic point of view. It depends on who knows about it. Rumours spread.
When you serve an injunction—I do not believe that this injunction was served
widely, and I am certainly not making any allegations against Mr Clarkson because I do not
think that it was from his side, as it happens—there will be certain people in the media who
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