Gagging the Press

While Private Eye covered this in some detail last week, the shit appears to have officially hit the fan today with the Guardian’s announcement that it has been barred from mentioning a certain question to be asked in Parliament this week. From the story…

Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.

The question (according to other sources) is about Trafigura, and their toxic oil dump back in 2007. And this is what it’s all about…

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.

It’s all publicly available in this list of Parliamentary questions – which makes the entire media-gagging order look pretty fucking stupid, and more and more as though Trafigura et al. have something to hide. Which is pretty fucking stupid in itself.