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MPs were celebrating a victory for press and internet freedom today after one of Britain's fiercest law firms abandoned a bid to gag the media from reporting Parliament.
Lawyers Carter-Ruck had tried to prevent newspapers from revealing that Labour MP Paul Farrelly had tabled a Commons question about oil trading giant Trafigura and its alleged dumping of toxic waste in Africa.
But the firm relented today following widespread publication of Mr Farrelly's question on the internet's “blogosphere”.
The issue was also the most popular topic on social networking site Twitter, prompting TV star Stephen Fry to claim that it had forced Carter-Ruck to abandon its media gag.
The case rapidly became a cause celebre in the past 24 hours as it has long been a principle of Parliamentary free speech that MPs' questions are protected by absolute privilege.
Mr Farrelly put down a Parliamentary question yesterday to the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, about current legislation protecting whistleblowers and press freedoms.
He asked about the injunction obtained by “Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton Report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura”.
But last night, Carter Ruck obtained an injunction barring the Guardian newspaper from even reporting the question. The paper was due to appear at the High Court at 2pm to challenge the injunction, when the firm dropped its claim that to report parliament would be a contempt of court.
Mr Fry, who has more than 800,000 followers on Twitter, issued a message expressing “public disgust at this barbaric assault on free speech”. After the change, he Tweeted: “Hurrah! Trafigura will deny it had anything to do with Twitter, but we know don't we? Yay!”
