Superinjunction Law Bans Media From Calling Fred Goodwin A Banker
SIR FRED Goodwin, aka Fred The Shred, is the holder of a superinjunction – the legal device that prevents the press from reporting that an injunction has been imposed.
You think the press is intrusive? Life without it wold be intolerable.
We know about the superinjunction because Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, John Hemming, mentioned it in the Commons. Parliamentary privilege means he can say the unsayable. And he said:
“In a secret hearing this week Fred Goodwin has obtained a superinjunction preventing him being identified as a banker… Will the government have a debate or a statement on freedom of speech and whether there’s one rule for the rich like Fred Goodwin and one rule for the poor?”
Goodwin was, of course, the top knob at the Royal Bank of Scotland, when it almost collapsed. He got loads money in pension deal and a tasty lump sum.
Hemming also said:
“The first question we need to ask is whether we are creating privacy laws by the back door without statutory underpinning or public support,” he said. “I think that’s arguably the case. We also need to ask whether we have any accountability on super injunctions – after all, currently there is no super injunction register, we don’t know how many there are and we don’t know who is asking for them.”
It’s draconian stuff. These injunctions were created to prevent the media producing material that could damage a trial. Now superinjunctions are used by the rich to protect their private lives.
Does that make you sleep easier?
“Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it’s subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”
— Robert A. Heinlein
Posted: 10th, March 2011 | In: Money Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
