Support Our Work Mailing list About / Contact

Spycatcher and the press (1)

01 January 1991

Support our work: become a Friend of Statewatch from as little as £1/€1 per month.

Spycatcher and the press
artdoc August=1991

The House of Lords has approved the bringing of criminal contempt
of court proceedings against newspapers which published extracts
of Spycatcher after the Attorney-General had obtained injunctions
against other papers. They agreed that the newspapers concerned
were not in breach of any injunction, since none had been made
against them. But, drawing on old case law, they said that a
criminal contempt was performed when someone did something with
the intention of frustrating court proceedings brought against
someone else. This means that in future, the government will only
have to take proceedings against one newspaper to shut them all
up.

Attorney-General v Times Newspapers, reported in 2 Weekly Law
Reports 994 (April 1991)

Statewatch no 3 July/August 1991

Our work is only possible with your support.
Become a Friend of Statewatch from as little as £1/€1 per month.

 Previous article

Women judges (1)

Next article 

Prison security alerts (1)

 

Spotted an error? If you've spotted a problem with this page, just click once to let us know.

Report error

Statewatch does not have a corporate view, nor does it seek to create one, the views expressed are those of the author. Statewatch is not responsible for the content of external websites and inclusion of a link does not constitute an endorsement. Registered UK charity number: 1154784. Registered UK company number: 08480724. Registered company name: The Libertarian Research & Education Trust. Registered office: MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH. © Statewatch ISSN 1756-851X. Personal usage as private individuals "fair dealing" is allowed. We also welcome links to material on our site. Usage by those working for organisations is allowed only if the organisation holds an appropriate licence from the relevant reprographic rights organisation (eg: Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK) with such usage being subject to the terms and conditions of that licence and to local copyright law.

About | Contact | Privacy Policy