WTF is it with judges in this country?
Discussion
carmonk said:
fergywales said:
carmonk said:
Judges should be elected. Many of them are bad, some are borderline insane. There should be more to being a judge than understanding ten thousand legal terms and being able to sit for three hours without falling asleep.
Considering the average person's knowledge of the law in this country could be written on the back of a fag packet, how would you suggest people would know how to elect the correct people to make judgements?
fergywales said:
carmonk said:
fergywales said:
carmonk said:
Judges should be elected. Many of them are bad, some are borderline insane. There should be more to being a judge than understanding ten thousand legal terms and being able to sit for three hours without falling asleep.
Considering the average person's knowledge of the law in this country could be written on the back of a fag packet, how would you suggest people would know how to elect the correct people to make judgements?
carmonk said:
fergywales said:
carmonk said:
...relate to real people and situations...
Met many judges?! 
Similar to the US where they vote in their judges?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge#United_States
Tony 1234 said:
+1 good call
No, but I understand a certain ageing welsh footballer who plays up north, an ex toon favourite who now commentates, a sports presenter who may be married to an ex Scottish rugby player and finally a scots actor with a penchant for motor bikes and likes a bit of trainspotting may be 4 people who may or may not have allegedly be affectedDo I get sued for this?
Kudos said:
No, but I understand a certain ageing welsh footballer who plays up north, an ex toon favourite who now commentates, a sports presenter who may be married to an ex Scottish rugby player and finally a scots actor with a penchant for motor bikes and likes a bit of trainspotting may be 4 people who may or may not have allegedly be affected
Do I get sued for this?
No, I don't believe I can work out who any of those would be. Although working out who these people are certainly is a giggle. Do I get sued for this?
Having read around this subject a bit (privacy isn't really my field), there are some misconceptions in this thread, and a bit of background might help.
- a person's right to privacy was introduced by the Human Rights Act 1988. Courtesy on T Blair.
- these cases involve a balance between the claimant's right to privacy and the defendant's right to freedom of expression (also formalised in the HRA 1988).
- injunctions are often two stage - at the outset of the case, the claimant gets an urgent injunction to stop the act complained of until the trial. This is a temporary injunction. At the trial the claimant's rights are determined for or against him. If he wins, he gets a permanent injunction stopping the acts. If he loses, the temporary injunction comes to an end.
- temporary injunctions are intended (and always have been) to "hold the ring" until the trial.
- if you as a claimant say that some private information about you is about to be wrongly disclosed, holding the ring until trial requires that information not be disclosed. It follows very clearly and easily that all the holes in the bottle that holds the genie (so to speak) have to be plugged until trial; otherwise, by the time you get to trial to vindicate your right to privacy, the private information will be public.
- an example of what can happen otherwise was the Spycatcher case. The Govt got its temporary injunction restraining Peter Wright publishing secret information. But the information then surfaced before trial in Ireland. By the time of the trial it was well known, and the Govt didn't bother trying to get what would have been an entirely useless final injunction.
- superinjunctions have been upheld the Court of Appeal.
- almost everything you read in the press that is anti-superinjunctions is written by someone who hates them, and has an agenda: a journalist.
- Eady is not changing the law. He is applying established principles concerning injunctions to a new area of law. This is something Judges do every day (Denning, in particular, did it himself almost every day). The courts have often extended the reach of injunctions - eg asset freezing orders, civil search orders, Norwich Pharmacol orders...
- Eady is an easy target for newspapers because a lot of applications for temporary superinjunctions come before him. Celebs with this sort of complaint tend to go to libel lawyers, and privacy claims have become an adjunct to a libel lawyer's practice. Eady is one of two designated libel judges.
- Eady hasn't been demoted. Since his appointment he has always been a High Court Judge.
- I'm all in favour of criticising Judges in public. But I understood "the Law Society should do something about him" as meaning he should be sacked. That's very different.
- Once more, if someone doesn't like a temporary or final injunction, their remedy is to go to the Court of Appeal. The CA has upheld the principle of superinjunctions though, and Lord Neuberger is in the process of preparing a report on them (but has said in a speech that he thinks they are here to stay).
- The right of privacy under the HRA is wide (too wide, in my view - eg JK Rowling was able to claim that a photo of her child in a pushchair, taken on a street in public, infringed the child's and her privacy. In public).
- newspapers often don't like to draw any distinction between what is in the public interest (ie something that the public should know, irrespective of other legal bars to its publication) and what is of interest to the public (eg a Premiership footballer is shagging someone). The latter sells more papers than the former.
So much for that lot.
FWIW, I suspect a lot of Judges would be unsympathetic to someone asserting a right to freedom of expression when they are doing so to make a ton of cash. To take a hypothetical: Mr. X is a celeb. He has a secret affair with Miss Y, and quite likes the tradesmen's entrance. They break up. Miss Y wants to tell the world about Mr X's sexual preferences. Mr. X has never expressed any view on the rights or wrongs of the back door - there's no hypocrisy angle. Nor is he married, but the affair was kept secret. But it just so happens that this all blows up because a tabloid is about to pay Miss Y a six figure sum for an exclusive story setting out all the salacious details of the affair.
Miss Y's claim to freedom of expression is really her desire to make a lot of money at someone else's expense. Balance that against Mr. X's claim to privacy and you can see in the short term (ie holding the ring until trial) that privacy should be maintained. In those specific circs, I can see why both the detail of the affair and the identity of the parties should be kept secret until trial, because the simple fact that X was in a secret affair is something X can claim to be private.
Finally - elected Judges. No, no and no. You really do not want a Judge who feels the need to hand down popularist decisions in order to get re-elected. This is an American concept that is a very bad idea.
- a person's right to privacy was introduced by the Human Rights Act 1988. Courtesy on T Blair.
- these cases involve a balance between the claimant's right to privacy and the defendant's right to freedom of expression (also formalised in the HRA 1988).
- injunctions are often two stage - at the outset of the case, the claimant gets an urgent injunction to stop the act complained of until the trial. This is a temporary injunction. At the trial the claimant's rights are determined for or against him. If he wins, he gets a permanent injunction stopping the acts. If he loses, the temporary injunction comes to an end.
- temporary injunctions are intended (and always have been) to "hold the ring" until the trial.
- if you as a claimant say that some private information about you is about to be wrongly disclosed, holding the ring until trial requires that information not be disclosed. It follows very clearly and easily that all the holes in the bottle that holds the genie (so to speak) have to be plugged until trial; otherwise, by the time you get to trial to vindicate your right to privacy, the private information will be public.
- an example of what can happen otherwise was the Spycatcher case. The Govt got its temporary injunction restraining Peter Wright publishing secret information. But the information then surfaced before trial in Ireland. By the time of the trial it was well known, and the Govt didn't bother trying to get what would have been an entirely useless final injunction.
- superinjunctions have been upheld the Court of Appeal.
- almost everything you read in the press that is anti-superinjunctions is written by someone who hates them, and has an agenda: a journalist.
- Eady is not changing the law. He is applying established principles concerning injunctions to a new area of law. This is something Judges do every day (Denning, in particular, did it himself almost every day). The courts have often extended the reach of injunctions - eg asset freezing orders, civil search orders, Norwich Pharmacol orders...
- Eady is an easy target for newspapers because a lot of applications for temporary superinjunctions come before him. Celebs with this sort of complaint tend to go to libel lawyers, and privacy claims have become an adjunct to a libel lawyer's practice. Eady is one of two designated libel judges.
- Eady hasn't been demoted. Since his appointment he has always been a High Court Judge.
- I'm all in favour of criticising Judges in public. But I understood "the Law Society should do something about him" as meaning he should be sacked. That's very different.
- Once more, if someone doesn't like a temporary or final injunction, their remedy is to go to the Court of Appeal. The CA has upheld the principle of superinjunctions though, and Lord Neuberger is in the process of preparing a report on them (but has said in a speech that he thinks they are here to stay).
- The right of privacy under the HRA is wide (too wide, in my view - eg JK Rowling was able to claim that a photo of her child in a pushchair, taken on a street in public, infringed the child's and her privacy. In public).
- newspapers often don't like to draw any distinction between what is in the public interest (ie something that the public should know, irrespective of other legal bars to its publication) and what is of interest to the public (eg a Premiership footballer is shagging someone). The latter sells more papers than the former.
So much for that lot.
FWIW, I suspect a lot of Judges would be unsympathetic to someone asserting a right to freedom of expression when they are doing so to make a ton of cash. To take a hypothetical: Mr. X is a celeb. He has a secret affair with Miss Y, and quite likes the tradesmen's entrance. They break up. Miss Y wants to tell the world about Mr X's sexual preferences. Mr. X has never expressed any view on the rights or wrongs of the back door - there's no hypocrisy angle. Nor is he married, but the affair was kept secret. But it just so happens that this all blows up because a tabloid is about to pay Miss Y a six figure sum for an exclusive story setting out all the salacious details of the affair.
Miss Y's claim to freedom of expression is really her desire to make a lot of money at someone else's expense. Balance that against Mr. X's claim to privacy and you can see in the short term (ie holding the ring until trial) that privacy should be maintained. In those specific circs, I can see why both the detail of the affair and the identity of the parties should be kept secret until trial, because the simple fact that X was in a secret affair is something X can claim to be private.
Finally - elected Judges. No, no and no. You really do not want a Judge who feels the need to hand down popularist decisions in order to get re-elected. This is an American concept that is a very bad idea.
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff