Is this a super-injunction which I see before me?

According to The Sun today, Mr Justice Tugendhat referred to Shakespeare in his judgment turning down the paper's appeal against the gagging order that prevents it naming the colleague with whom former RBS chief Sir Fred Goodwin had an affair.

The Sun says his 35-page ruling "bizarrely referred to Romeo and Juliet!"

It quotes from the judgment: "Shakespeare invites the audience to sympathise with Juliet. The audience will consider that she had a reasonable expectation of privacy, at least until she exchanged marriage vows with Romeo."

Mr Justice Tugendhat decided that Sir Fred's affair did not distract him and had no impact on the bank's downfall. He said naming the woman would "be likely to cause distress to her".

Sun can't name Sir Fred Goodwin's mistress

A High Court judge today refused to let the Sun name the woman RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin had an affair with.

An injunction prevents the Sun identifying the woman, disclosing her job or employment history.

Earlier this month, the Sun went to court to fight the gagging order - but today Mr Justice Tugendhat refused to lift it.

The same judge has quashed a ban on revealing Sir Fred had the affair after Liberal Democrat peer Lord Stoneham used Parliamentary privilege to name him in the House of Lords.

A High Court judge issued the original court gag in March after Sir Fred discovered the Sun was planning to expose.

High Court lifts injunction on Sir Fred Goodwin

The privacy injunction granting anonymity to Sir Fred Goodwin, the former boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland, was lifted at the High Court today.

The existence of Sir Fred's injunction had already been made public by an MP using parliamentary privilege.

The MP, Lib Dem MP John Hemming, asked in the House of Commons: "In a secret hearing, Fred Goodwin has obtained a super-injunction preventing him from being identified as a banker."

He then asked: "Will the Government have a debate or a statement on the issue of freedom of speech and whether there is one law for the rich, such as Fred Goodwin, and another law for the poor?"

The MP's question raised speculation about the nature of the information which Sir Fred is trying to protect, but the media was prevented from disclosing any details under the terms of the injunction.

The High Court ruling to lift the order followed a further intervention today by Lord Stoneham who used parliamentary privilege to reveal more details in the House of Lords. He said the injunction was being used to "hide an alleged relationship" involving Sir Fred and a senior colleague. (see post below)

Mr Justice Tugendhat, sitting in London, varied the injunction to allow publication of Sir Fred's name, but not details of the alleged relationship and the name of the woman said to be involved.

The Sun said today: "A court gag preventing us from naming Fred the Shred as the banker behind a super-injunction has been lifted this afternoon.

"We won the right to formally name the banker after a Lib Dem peer spoke out in the House of Lords today. The banning order prevented publication of details of a 'sexual relationship'.

"It is understood that the former RBS boss did not oppose the lifting of the gag."

Lord breaks Sir Fred Goodwin's super-injunction

Sky News is reporting that a Lord has broken the super-injuction in place surrounding former RBS boss Fred Goodwin in the House of Lords.

Lord Stoneham, asking a question in the House of Lords on behalf of Lord Oakeshott, said: "To ask HMG what steps they will take to ensure that the public interest is taken into account in the granting of superinjuctions?"

In a supplementary question he said: "Would he accept that every taxpayer has a direct public interest in the events leading up to the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland?

"So how can it be right for a superinjunction to hide the alleged relationship between Sir Fred Goodwin and a senior colleague? If true, it would be a serious failure of corporate governance and not even the FSA would be allowed to know about it."

Justice minister Lord McNally replied: "I do not think it is proper for me, from this dispatch box, to comment on individual cases, some of which are before the courts."

• The Guardian is reporting today that Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has ruled out introducing a Privacy Law.
  

Social media speculation puts pressure on judges to lift Sir Fred Goodwin's super-injunction

Judges are facing growing pressure to lift the super-injunction obtained by Sir Fred Goodwin amid speculation on the internet about the nature of the information he is trying to protect, claims the Daily Telegraph today.

The existence of the injunction was revealed under parliamentary priviledge on Thursday by John Hemming, the back-bench Liberal Democrat MP, during a business debate in the House of Commons.

The Telegraph says: "The terms of the injunction are so strict that the Telegraph is prevented from disclosing any details, but social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook were rife with speculation about why the former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive had taken out the injunction."

Padraig Reidy, of Index on Censorship, tells the Telegraph: “The laws on injunctions and super-injunctions are stuck in the past and really do not take into account the speed and the way people communicate on the internet today.

“It is nigh on impossible once something has broken on social networking sites to put the cat back in the bag. On the internet there is a real sense of a right to information.”

Hemming told Parliament that the super-injunction even prevented Sir Fred from being identified as a banker and asked: “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?”

The Telegraph says in a leader comment today: "Sir Fred “the Shred” Goodwin, who presided over the near-collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, retired on an annual pension of £342,000 and also received a lump sum of almost £3 million. We have no idea whether he used any of this cash for legal fees to obtain a secret super-injunction banning the publication of information about him. But if it did cost him a lot of money, he must be regretting it. For, although the court granted Sir Fred’s wish, this week a Liberal Democrat MP revealed in Parliament one of the things the injunction was supposed to conceal: the very fact of its existence.

"Given their extreme nature and the public controversy that they engender, super-injunctions do not seem to be particularly hard to obtain. Over the past few years, British courts have been strangely eager to grant these gagging orders, whose basis lies in human rights legislation inspired by Europe. It is hard to avoid the view that judges are forging a privacy law on the hoof.

"Fortunately, there is one thing that trumps the “human right” to silence a free press, and that is the legal privilege of MPs to say anything they like in Parliament, which dates back to the Civil War. Secret super-injunctions are, in theory, extremely powerful instruments – but, thanks to that ancient freedom, this particular one lies in shreds."

Sun splash shreds Sir Fred's super-injunction

The Sun's splash today shows the way the super-injunction granted to the former boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Sir Fred Goodwin, has been torpedoed by an MP using parliamentary privilege and failed to keep his name out of the press.

Lib Dem MP John Hemming asked in the House of Commons yesterday: "In a secret hearing, Fred Goodwin has obtained a super-injunction preventing him from being identified as a banker."

He then asked: "Will the Government have a debate or a statement on the issue of freedom of speech and whether there is one law for the rich, such as Fred Goodwin, and another law for the poor?"

The MP's question raised speculation about the nature of the information which Sir Fred is trying to protect, but the media is prevented from disclosing any details under the terms of the injunction.