Lib Dem told discussion about specific injunction could only take place in private due to sub judice rules
John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, offered yesterday to have a private discussion with an MP who raised the issue of superinjunctions on the floor of the house.
John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP who campaigns against the injunctions, was told by the Speaker that the matter could only be raised in private because of fears that a public discussion would undermine strict parliamentary rules on cases that may be sub judice.
Hemming spoke out after the BBC presenter Andrew Marr said he felt "uneasy" and "embarrassed" after taking out a superinjunction to protect his family's privacy. A number of sports and television personalities have taken out similar injunctions which impose severe restrictions which can occasionally prevent reporting even of the existence of the injunction.
Hemming raised the issue of an injunction taken out by a claimant known as AMM, a married television personality who wants to protect details of his private life. This is not Marr.
The MP for Birmingham Yardley said to Bercow: "There is a tendency for people to issue injunctions on the basis of a claim that they intend to issue proceedings but not actually to issue those proceedings. One case such as that is AMM where no proceedings have been issued. One would presume therefore that never becomes sub judice."
Bercow told Hemming he should raise the matter at a private meeting he had offered the MP a few minutes earlier after he used parliamentary privilege to raise a separate child protection case. This related to a matter in the family division and was not one of the superinjunctions.
The Speaker told Hemming: "I don't intend to have a discussion on the floor of the house ? on the issue of whether a particular case is or is not sub judice. One of my duties is to uphold the resolution of the house with respect to sub judice issue.
"I am perfectly prepared to discuss the issue privately with the honourable gentleman ? I feel sure that the honourable gentleman will take his cue from the very clear response that I have just given him."
The exchanges followed Marr's decision to speak out about his own injunction after Private Eye launched a challenge to it last week. The presenter of Radio 4's Start the Week and the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 told the Daily Mail: "I did not come into journalism to go around gagging journalists. Am I embarrassed by it? Yes. Am I uneasy about it? Yes."
But he added: "I also had my own family to think about, and I believed this story was nobody else's business. I still believe there was, under those circumstances, no legitimate public interest in it."
Marr said the injunctions seemed to be "running out of control". "There is a case for privacy in a limited number of difficult situations, but then you have to move on. They shouldn't be for ever and a proper sense of proportion is required."
Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, told the Today programme he thought the superinjunction had been "a touch hypocritical" as Marr had written an article saying parliament ? not judges ? should determine privacy law. "As a leading BBC interviewer who is asking politicians about failures in judgment, failures in their private lives, inconsistencies, it was pretty rank of him to have an injunction while working as an active journalist. I think he knows that and I'm very pleased he's come forward and said 'I can no longer do this'."
Last week David Cameron said: "The judges are creating a sort of privacy law whereas what ought to happen in a parliamentary democracy is parliament, which you elect and put there, should decide how much protection do we want for individuals and how much freedom of the press and the rest of it."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/apr/26/superinjunctions-mp-sub-judice
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