Labour assault on Press freedom is illegal says QC
A ‘CHILLING’ assault on Press freedom by Labour would be illegal, a leading QC has warned.
Antony White said proposals to punish newspapers by forcing them to pay huge legal bills – even if they won a case – would be ‘struck down’ by the courts.
He said ‘disadvantageous’ amendments tabled by antimedia campaigner Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, would violate human rights laws. Mr Watson’s measures would apply to any newspaper that refused to sign up to the state-approved Press regulator.
There is only one regulator with official recognition, Impress, which is funded almost entirely through a family trust by ex-Formula 1 boss Max Mosley, whose racist past was exposed by the Daily Mail. Mr Watson has accepted £540,000 in donations from the former motor racing chief, who has been an ardent supporter of state-backed Press regulation since being exposed for taking part in an S&M orgy with prostitutes.
Almost all national and local newspapers, including the Daily Mail, are members of the Independent Press Standards Organisation, which is entirely free of state control.
The proposals echo the heavily criticised Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, which Culture Secretary Matt Hancock has refused to implement.
The draconian amendments, which critics claim amount to ‘blackmail’, would force newspapers not signed up to Impress to pay all legal costs in data protection cases even if they were successful. Impress members would be exempt from the punitive regime.
In a legal opinion for the News Media Association, Mr White said Mr Watson’s amendments to the Data Protection Bill could be a breach of Articles 10, 14 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of expression, safeguards against discrimination and guarantees a fair trial.
He said: ‘In my view... the disadvantageous costs regime imposed... on media publishers which make the lawful and principled choice to join Ipso and not to join Impress violates these directly effective Charter rights.’
If enacted, they would be ‘liable to be struck down by the UK courts’. The top barrister said: ‘Parliament cannot lawfully enact legislation which is incompatible with directly applicable EU law measures.’
He added: ‘It is a fundamental principle of public law that it is unlawful to punish a person who has done nothing wrong.’
The proposed changes, which go before MPs on Wednesday, would make it harder to carry out investigative journalism and protect the identity of sources who reveal wrongdoing, meaning that criminals, corrupt business leaders and cheating MPs could avoid being exposed.
Rich and powerful people who feared they were under investigation could drag media companies through the courts in the knowledge that it would not cost them a penny, threatening the survival of many struggling titles. Mr White’s nine-page legal opinion stated: ‘There is no doubt that the markedly less favourable costs regime imposed on defendants who are not members of an approved regulator will have a chilling effect on the journalistic activities of publishers who have chosen not to join Impress.
‘They will inevitably be less willing to investigate and publish articles about living individuals which might attract claims for breach of the data protection legislation.
‘That chilling effect will have an impact even where a publisher believes it has grounds to defend such a claim, because the effect of [the clause] is that it will be unlikely to recover its costs even if the claim fails.’
Mr Hancock’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said the amendments ‘would undermine a free Press and high-quality, investigative journalism’.
The new Data Protection Bill aims to strengthen rights and empower individuals to have more control over their personal information, while slapping heavy fines on organisations that do not safeguard sensitive data.
It has an exemption for journalists who access and store personal information without consent when reporting news in the public interest.
‘A chilling effect on journalistic activities’