Tag Archives: bridget prentice

Guardian.co.uk: Government to convene senior politicians summit to ‘reinforce’ freedom of the press

The Guardian reports on yesterday’s parliamentary debate on the effect of libel law on reporting Parliament:

[Justice minister Bridget Prentice] announced that the government would convene a summit of senior politicians to discuss ways to ‘reinforce’ the freedom of the press in reporting parliament and the historic principle of parliamentary privilege.”

(…)

“In the debate today MPs from all parties criticised the issuing ‘super-injunctions’ against the press and their concerns were echoed by Prentice: ‘We are very concerned that they are being used more commonly and particularly in the area of libel and privacy, and the secretary of state for justice [Jack Straw] has already asked senior officials in the department to discuss that matter with lawyers from the newspapers and we are involving the judiciary in a consultation too.'”

High Court does not collect statistics on ‘super injunctions’

Statistics about non-reportable injunctions, the so-called secret ‘super injunctions’ are not collected by the High Court, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Bridget Prentice said yesterday, in answer to a written Parliamentary question.

MP Paul Farrelly tabled a written question asking the Secretary of State for Justice ‘if he will (a) collect and (b) publish statistics on the number of non-reportable injunctions issued by the High Court in each of the last five years.’

Bridget Prentice answered that the information requested is not currently available and the High Court has no intention to collate such data:

“The High Court collects figures on applications, however injunctions are not separately identifiable, and there are currently no plans to amend databases to do so.”

(Hat-tip: @loveandgarbage on Twitter)