61 N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.
Which was already in the public domain being reported in the Guardian. Under a barrage of Tweets using the #trafigura and #carterruck hashtags the lawyers have backed down. Not before many more thousands of people learn just what Trafigura were trying to hid. The D-Notice gagging the Guardian was lifted before the paper could get this raised in court.
The fight is not over though Lib Dem MPs were seeking an emergency debate of the Bill of Rights sovereignty over the reporting of matters in the Houses of Parliament, this I feel should still go ahead. You can sign the petition on the Number 10 Website here.
No comments:
Post a Comment