Friday 2 March 2012

Why super injunctions are as leaky as a sieve


The Telegraph U.K. 29 February 2011:

A parliamentary committee published a document revealing the details of one of Britain's last remaining super–injunctions.
In the submission to the 26–member committee, Mark Burby, a businessman based in the Channel Islands, claimed that he had been gagged by the "ex–spouse of an Asian head of state" in 2009.
He said the "Asian head of state" – whom he does not identify – was a "substantial" backer of al–Qaeda, and had advance warning of the suicide bombings on London's transport system in 2005.
The ex–wife "and her solicitors have boasted to me and others that she 'owns' the courts in England and Wales and the Government", he said.
Mr Burby alleged the unnamed ex–spouse, whom he described as one of the wealthiest women in the world, had a sexual relationship "with one of her two solicitors"…..

Evidence presented under parliamentary privilege to the U.K. Parliament Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions here.

Neither the media article nor the written submission disclosed much more than what is quoted above. However, I’m of the opinion that a quick Google search based on the name of former air flight attendant Mariam Abdul Aziz would indicate that the silly court-imposed super injunction is not worth the paper it is printed on. This is supported by previously published legal judgments freely available on the Internet which allude to some of the pertinent facts.

If my supposition is in fact correct, then it might make one wonder why Archerfield Partners LLP and the British Courts continue to pursue the fiction that in today’s digital world a legal injunction can or will stop the flow of publicly available information.

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