Monday, May 30, 2011

Nobody told me!

I would like to think that this will be the final post on injunctions - but I somehow doubt it.  Somebody made the very interesting and valid point the other day that super injunctions carry within themselves the seed of their own destruction.  It goes like this - A takes a court action against B to prevent them from publishing something, and obtains a super injunction to that effect.  If B now goes ahead and publishes, they will be in breach of the injunction and subject to punishment.  But suppose C publishes?  They can't be in breach of the injunction, because they were not a party in the action, but provided they knew the injunction had been granted, they could be in contempt of court, and liable to prosecution and punishment as such.  But here's the catch - a super injunction, as you know (provided you have been paying attention) prohibits the publication of the fact that the injunction exists - so how is C (or D, E, F and the rest of them) to know?  And if they don't know, they can't be in contempt of court!  Interesting, eh?

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