How UK laws are used by the 'rich and powerful' to suppress ordinary people

Now, I mentioned about an hour ago that super injunction relating to Afghanistan and the UK government, the conservative government at the time, but the super injunction survived into the Starmer years as well. You'll remember it probably because Lewis Goodall, our very own presenter of Some Days of Lewis Goodall on LBC and co-host of Global's podcast, The News Agents, you were one of the people who essentially had this super injunction that the government. That the government took out slapped on you, essentially, weren't you? Yes. Indeed, Sheila. And obviously, that super injunction, which was constitutionally unprecedented because it was, as we are relearning and reliving, most injunctions and indeed super injunctions tend to concern the courts preventing the publication or release of private information, usually due to privacy concerns, violations or rights. The super injunction was very different because it was about the government, for safety reasons, they claimed, Trying to, potential right to life reasons, different threat to life, trying to stop, indeed successfully stopping, the publication of initially our story and then applied to lots of other newspapers. And of course, the... But ends are rather different there because this was about, they said, as I say, the potential because of the nature of this leak and the fact that there was a data set with thousands of Afghans names on it and details and potential addresses and contact details and all that sort of thing and their family members. And if obviously the Taliban got hold of all of that, the government's justification was we've got to prevent the publication of this story in order initially to. try and get some people out. But over the two years that it was in, because it was in for 23 months in the end, from August 23 to July 25, that the justification changed to basically say, well, we're not going to try and get anyone out now, but we still don't want people to know about this because there are still potentially some safety concerns. And the point about that, Sheila, and the way that it relates to these privacy injunctions, of course, very different, but nonetheless, the means are basically the same, Is that... We still probably wouldn't be talking about that story. We would have never been able to do that story last July, despite the fact that it involved £7 billion of public money that the government was spending. Parliament had no say whatsoever on that repatriation of those thousands of Afghans, nor on the amount of money being spent. Speaker of the House of Commons was injuncted. We only know because the government decided to lift it. And in many cases, these injunctions can go on for years. And years and years, and we just can't report what they concern. Yeah, and the idea that there was no public interest in that being known was for the birds. Yes, indeed, absolutely. Completely for the birds. And we should remember, so the difference is... Forgive me coughing so much. The difference is that, you know, just to remind listeners, because obviously most people would never be subject to an injunction, let alone a super injunction, even come into contact with one. And so just to remind people, listeners and viewers, what they are, a privacy injunction is basically a court order which stops information being published, either by us, the media, usually it's us, but it could be anybody. In my case, it was a so-called super injunction contramundum. Against the entire world. So it basically applied to everybody, even if they didn't necessarily know about it. Do you get a trophy for that? Well, yeah, I'm still waiting. A little medallion, I'm hoping. Thank you. And basically, in England and Wales, at least, because the law in Scotland is different, judges basically weigh two competing rights, privacy and freedom of expression. In our case, they were weighing up the right to life or the danger to life of the people. Of the Afghan people. Indeed so, and trying to weigh that up. And actually, time and time again. The courts, a secret court, because this was in, you know, obviously it had to be held in secret by definition of the super injunction. The secret court repeatedly ruled in the government's favour. And obviously the crucial distinction with regards to these celebrities, at least, is that a story can be true and still be considered legally private. Whereas in the United States, for example, which has much stricter laws because of the First Amendment in terms of around freedom of expression and so on, generally speaking, unless something is deeply defamatory, i.e. untrue, It's very much a case of publish and be damned. So these legal mechanisms... ...are present in the UK, and when you back them up with our very strict libel laws and defamation laws as well, you can see why Britain often becomes a kind of legal tourism shop, if you like, for very powerful people to... And we've seen this, for example, in the case of sort of Russian oligarchs and so on. They come and base themselves in London, they pay these lawyers enormous amounts, not even just to take out an injunction sometimes, but to use the threat... I've had this myself when working on stories. You get a long legal letter from one of the great illustrious law firms in the city of London and basically they threaten the idea of an injunction or libel law or defamatory law or all three. And the point of this and the through line of all of this is what I'd say to listeners and viewers is this and I think what we've got to worry about and consider. Super injunction, those three different types of cases I've identified. Super injunction case where the government was basically using it. These very rich, powerful people. They're using injunctions to protect their privacy. And then in some cases, you know, kleptocrats, frankly, oligarchs, people who've come from abroad, try and use the threat of injunction to conceal things about their business affairs or whatever it happens to be. What's the one thing they all have in common, Sheila? They're all very powerful. And rich. And they're rich. The government has unlimited resources to fight their cases as they did with us. Hundreds of lawyers still trying to find out the full cost of that. And in the case of anybody else, they are using the legal system To not just protect their privacy, and I think this is where we've got to have a conversation as a country and the government has to think, because it's one thing for an individual to say, I want to protect my privacy, OK, there may be legitimate reasons they need or should be able to do that. But what about the right of individuals who may have much less money, far less power and far less access to the influential to tell their story? What about their right to be able to tell their story unadulterated? In effect, that's their privacy. Where there is public interest. Where there is public interest and personal interest in their being able to say what has happened to them and have that claim litigated in public. Because, of course, those people do not have, very often, the same access to the legal system, which, as we know, is extremely expensive and can be, not always, can be used as an instrument of power And I was watching last night on social media an interview that Marion Jones gave, the journalist who was one of two, well, you'll know better than me, two notable Newsnight journalists who've been working on the Jimmy Savile story. And he was saying he's aware of multiple comparable situations where people are... Seeking injunctions, investigations are going on, journalists are being stymied left, right and centre to try to get these stories out there where there is a public interest because tittle-tattle isn't the same as public interest, is it? No, it certainly isn't. And of course there should be some right to privacy and some of that is enshrined in ECHR, for example. Some of it is enshrined in British law. And of course we need to have laws. You can argue that the American system is too far the other way where it's a bit of a kind of... a sort of state of nature kind of thing. You know, you say almost what you want. Yeah, I sometimes listen to their podcasts or watch their podcasts. I wouldn't do that. But I would say that ours is far too far in the other direction. What you can at least say about the First Amendment is that, yes, in the United States, which is the amendment which guarantees freedom of expression, Thank is that although, I mean, for example, the super injunction story, which happened here, could never have happened in the United States. Because of the First Amendment. The only situation in which that might have happened you would have been a voluntary agreement, which initially we were seeking with the government, to basically say, well, we'll publish this, very but we won't publish that, and so on, and we'll do it on this date to give you that time. Would never have happened in the United States. Could never have happened. And, um... much. And... One of the things we were worried about when we were subject to it is that someone like the New York Times or someone would get or the Washington Post would get the story and they wouldn't give a damn about what British law was saying with regards to that. They'd just publish it in the United States and we'd have had the absurd situation where we still wouldn't have been able to report it in Britain while they were reporting it in the United States. Can I ask, how do you... You called the New York Times, say, or the Washington Post. Well, we would have been subject to the law. You would have been prosecuted. We weren't even allowed to tell our family members and so on, Sheila. That wasn't allowed because we were repeatedly told throughout the process that we would face 10 years in jail if we broke the terms of the super injunction. Although there was a very funny moment at the very end of the process, I think it was the last hearing. And bear in mind, we'd had 23 months then of hearings, sort of in these secret courts where they lock the door and take your phone away. I'm not going to ruin him. By that time, it just started off basically us and the government and then because we were injuncted first and then different journalists got sort of the story and then gradually by the end of the 23 months, this courtroom 72 with the Royal Court of Justice was absolutely full, government side and our side. And then after all of that, on the most complicated and unprecedented constitutional legal mechanism to enforce this secrecy over 23 months, it's supposed to be lifted in two days and the government case that he gets up and she says, can I just say, now we've locked the doors, just wanted to check. Is everyone here supposed to be here? And of course, everyone just says yes. He said, okay, that's fine. I thought, is that it? Is that it? 23 months where we've potentially been subject to 10 years in jail and the sum of the British state's checks is a show of hands. It was just perfect, perfect embodiment of the creepiness of the British state. I think we were just surprised. Stunned by it, yeah. But the point is about these things, I mean, you know, there is obviously, there are going to be times when having a legal mechanism, particularly a short-term one, Privacy, when there is no public interest. Or safety, sometimes. And safety, absolutely. Safety is going to be absolutely necessary, right and proper. I certainly wouldn't be arguing for a kind of, as I say, kind of Hobbesian legal state of nature where we just go publish and be damned and no matter. But I think there can be no doubt. One of the things that I kept thinking about, as you were saying what Myron Jones was saying there, the whole point about the injunction is we don't know potentially what else is going on. I kept... I sat during the super injunction process thinking to myself, OK, well, I kept being we kept being told this had never happened before. And I'm thinking, well, will it ever happen again? And we still don't know that the government, this government, I mean, they did lift it in the end to be fair. Do we know? Remind me why John Healy? It was John Healy at the time. John Healy commissioned a review called the Rimmer Review, led by an ex-civil servant called Paul Rimmer, who basically said the initial evidential basis on which the super injunction was granted. ...was no longer correct, i.e. they didn't think that actually, even if the Taliban found out about it, they wouldn't kill the people on the list. And I sort of said, well, was that initial assumption wrong? Yeah. Or do you just no longer care as much? And so, look, the point is, is that with all of these things, particularly if the government's involved... It's all stacked in their favour. And the problem potentially, as I said, I have no problem with the idea of obviously law regulating privacy and sometimes the idea of legal remedies to protect privacy. The problem is when they become instruments to protect and insulate the powerful and wealthy, particularly against potential whistleblowers, potential victims, people who have the right, surely, to tell their story as much as, say, a celebrity has the right. To try and protect their reputation. And we know that when people do come, think of the Saville case again, when people do come forward in numbers, they can still be dismissed, can't they? As happened ultimately on that investigation. Absolutely, they can. And, you know, we need protections for those people too. Thank you, Lewis. Fascinating reminder of that super injunction, which I'd forgotten about. Can you believe that? I dare you. They didn't need the super injunction with you, Sheila. You just forget about it. I just forget. Yeah. Tell me and then I'll forget about it. A little bit of amnesia. That's better than any super injunction. Your trophy's on the way. Lewis Goodall. I already got one. Host of the News Agents podcast. Don't be a big show off. Don't forget the latest episode drops at five today.