Which scottish newspaper injunction

As if to underline the personal nature of interdict, it has been felt necessary to make specific provision for the taking out of interdicts against unknown persons in Scotland and similar injunctions in England for the purposes of dealing with threatened breaches of the Energy Act In Oliver, the Inner House took a very detailed look at the background to the leading case on the personal nature of interdict Pattison v Fitzgerald []. Their conclusions seem to underline, once again, the need for those who are to be subject to an interdict to be parties to the interdict proceedings.

Irrespective of the legal complexities thrown up by consideration of the nature and competence of interdict in Scotland, the reality is that there are existing statutory provisions for this kind of situation. Section 27 of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act as amended the Act is designed to deal with the taking of protective measures in Scotland in the absence of substantive proceedings being raised here. The protective measures available specifically include interim interdict.

There are few reported cases where reliance has been placed on s27 but, where it has been used, a Scottish court was prepared to grant interim interdict in terms that reflected the foreign court order — even where the terms of the order would be incompetent in Scotland. In G v Caledonian Newspapers Ltd [] the terms of an English privacy injunction were simply repeated verbatim in the Scottish order even though it included an order against the world at large.

There must be some doubt though as to the correctness of the Caledonian Newspaper decision. The Act does nothing to alter the substantive Scots law on interdict. The law must therefore be taken as being as stated by the Inner House in both the Cavendish case and Oliver. There is certainly no indication in either case that interdicts against the world are anything other than incompetent under Scots law. Equally, although there is no authority on the point, it is assumed that an application under the Act must still be directed against specific parties — at least in the first instance.

In the Caledonian Newspaper case, for example, several individual newspapers were called as respondents to the petition.

Inevitably, each of them would have had a caveat in place and would therefore have received warning of the application for interim interdict before it was granted. Despite all the foregoing discussion there seems to be no reason in principle why super-interim interdicts cannot exist in Scotland.

It has become harder over the past year or so to define precisely what is meant by the English term super-injunction. Perhaps, predictably, the popular press has chosen to use the term in a very loose rather than a legal sense. The injunction in that case not only prevented the Guardian reporting on their investigation but, critically, also prevented them reporting the very existence of the injunction and fact that they were subject to it.

In contrast most, if not all, of the current crop of injunctions in England are not true super-injunctions at all.

They have been labelled as such by the press simply because the court has agreed that the party seeking the injunction should be anonymous. Given the nature of the privacy breaches alleged in such cases, the need for anonymity is hardly surprising.

Revealing the name of the party would render the injunction pointless even if full details were not already available for all to read online. Granting parties to an action, anonymity is relatively commonplace. Recent examples can be found in Scotland without difficulty — often children are involved — and, if an interim or permanent interdict forms part of the subject matter of the action, then the anonymous element will be extended to protect the relevant party.

To that extent anonymised interdicts appear to present no difficulty in Scotland. The question of interim or permanent interdicts which, of themselves, ban the interdicted party from revealing the existence of the interdict is a much trickier one.

For obvious reasons it is difficult to say with any certainty whether such interdicts have been granted in the past in Scotland but, on balance, it seems unlikely.

Having said that, Scotland is a small jurisdiction with a relatively small legal profession and, however draconian the court order, it seems unlikely that news would not leak out in legal circles. Certainly any failed attempts to obtain an interdict of that kind would be picked up and commented on.

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A celebrity soap story is the lead story in the Daily Star. It reports how the stars of EastEnders are fearing for their jobs following the arrival of the soap's new boss. Herald Scotland. Daily Express. Daily Record. The Scottish Sun. The Courier. The Scotsman. These two individuals then approached the editor of the Sun on Sunday telling their story. The newspaper approached the Appellant and he eventually obtained an interim injunction in the Court of Appeal.

The story naming those involved then appeared in a US magazine, in Canada and in a Scottish newspaper as well as online. The Court of Appeal then removed the injunction on the grounds that the information was now public but kept it in place pending the appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court held that despite the publication online and outside of the jurisdiction, there was no public interest in the story and that removing the injunction would allow significant additional intrusion into the privacy of the Appellant, his partner and their children.

The Court took the view that the world of the internet and social media was uncontrollable but that discharging the injunction would lead to a different and in some respects more enduring dimension to the existing invasions of privacy on the internet.