For those of you who are unaware of the debacle a Premier League footballer took out a super-injunction to prevent the media from publishing the story about his six month sexual affair with the former Big Brother contestant. However Social networking site Twitter has been used as a vehicle recently by some users to name and shame celebrities over their scandalous stories and he was one of them – he is also looking into legal action against the Californian company.
This has since sparked debate over whether celebrities can impose such gagging orders on the media when at the click of the button on Twitter all can be revealed. Many argue that the orders should be disposed of because it is a law that is designed purely to protect the rich as only they can afford to impose privacy injunctions or super-injunctions. Others believe that even the rich and famous are entitled to a private life and it is not in the public interest to know who’s sleeping with whom.
In the Press Complaints Commission ethics code (1992:11) it states that “the public interest is not whatever happens to interest the public.” It must be something of paramount importance to the public – can it be argued that this is imperative to the public’s needs? Celebrity magazines such as Hello! and Heat would certainly have you think so.
And onto the issue that has got The Sunday Herald into hot water. On May 22 it printed a photograph on the front page of the footballer, with his eyes blackened out and the word ‘censored’ over the top – immediately obvious to anyone who picked up the paper and read it as to who the Premiership star was. Underneath the caption: "Everyone knows this is the footballer accused of using the courts to keep allegations of a sexual affair secret. But we weren't supposed to tell you that.”
The paper goes on to name the footballer in the newspaper and this has made the representatives of the player to consider what legal action to take. However, there is a legal loophole and this has created a divide in media law opinion as to whether The Sunday Herald has a right to publish such stories.
Many argue including criminal law expert QC Paul McBride that the super injunction only applies to English media law and not the whole of the UK so it is perfectly legit for the Scottish paper to publish the story.
“They forget that Scotland has an entirely separate legal system which makes its own judgments. They think that their rulings affect the world when in reality it is just England and related jurisdictions,” McBride told The Scotsman.
"Basically the footballer's lawyers forgot that they should take out an interdict in Scotland, and that allowed the Sunday Herald to publish.
"They can call it a super-duper-injunction. If they don't have an interdict in Scotland it is worthless."
Although top media lawyer Brian Deane has a different view he believes the paper’s editors, journalists and directors could be prosecuted for contempt of court.
“If the paper was absolutely sure of its position, why didn't it publish the names of all the other super-injunctions, none of which have been served in Scotland?” Deane told The Scotsman.
"I suspect that if the roles were reversed and a Scottish judge's ruling was ignored this way in England the Scottish judge would be seething."
So it seems that according to Deane being aware of the injunction being in place is the crux of the matter rather than whether or not the injunction was directly imposed on the newspaper itself.
However Mr. Deane has raised an important issue when he asks why they have they not named all the other super- injunctions. If The Sunday Herald was to win the case then this could potentially start a wave of Scottish newspapers naming and shaming celebs that have imposed gagging orders across the border.
But The Sunday Herald is not the first paper to reveal the player’s name as the Spanish print media have also published who the player is which poses the question everyone knows who it Is, so why does he not just come out and admit it?
In 2011 there have been 18 privacy junctions granted with a further 12 super-injunctions being put in place which ban the media from even mentioning their existence. A recent report by the Telegraph revealed that nine footballers, nine actors, four pop stars, six wealthy businessmen and women, a senior civil servant and an MP have obtained injunctions. Schillings, the media law firm, has obtained more than 20 of the orders and been paid an estimated £2 million.
But what is your view on the matter should celebs be granted such orders to avoid their dirty linen being washed out in public, do newspapers and magazines print these stories because they know it will sell papers and therefore is it in the public interest? Or does becoming the status of a celeb mean that the public have a right to know every single detail of the person’s life?
No comments:
Post a Comment