A breath-taking extension of the Hyper-injunction.
Historically, the Court of Protection ‘protected the purse, not the person’.
The Mental Capacity Act of 2005 dramatically extended the remit of the court to include the ability to ‘protect the person’ as well – from October 2007 they were able to make decisions regarding, for instance, where a person lived, what medical treatment they received, or rather, didn’t receive.
Last Friday afternoon, they dramatically extended their powers to include the immediate family and friends of a person under the Court’s protection.
In a case provisionally known only as Re: M, concerning a 53 year old woman who is in a ‘minimal’ conscious state, rather than a persistent vegetative state, as in previous cases where permission has been sought to withdraw food and water, and whose Mother has applied to the court for permission to allow her daughter to die, they went much further than the usual secrecy demanded of cases in this most secret of courts.
Rather than contenting themselves with the usual demand that no party may be named or identified, they have issued an injunction which prevents any news organisation from coming within 160′ of any of a total of 65 different witnesses and 4 different addresses connected with the case, or from communicating with M or with any of the 65 people listed, “whether orally in person, or by telephoning, text message, email or other means”.
It is the most draconian injunction so far issued by any court.
It now means that the understandable secrecy which is attached to court proceedings regarding vulnerable people who are in no position to give informed consent to publicity – has been extended to 65 members of the public, and journalists risk imprisonment if they breach the injunction.
It is a quite breathtaking extension of their remit.
May 28, 2011 at 15:46
-
Hi, happened to get to this website and am both disgusted and horrified
that my perceptions of this New Labour England full of DoLs, that I found when
returning to the UK in 2008, are all too true, yet utterly happy, that it is
not just me, who can see this is all a constant Kafka tale that we´re trapped
in. – deprived of civil liberties and kafkaesque- that sums up the country I
found, I´m sure it used to be different.
I´ll soon tell you a tale with a
big London Labour Council (possibly in conjunction with the CoE) trying to
silence me by attempting to get the social services machine swallowing me up
unless I stop trying to get justice for my child. It´s a revolting tale with:
Labour granting excessive powers to heads and schools, making schools largely
unaccountable for misconduct and parents desperate for recourse, unchallenged
religous bullying, suspicions fo religious abuse at church school, toxic and
carcinogenic incense as a health risk in UK churches, children´s health
ignored over religion, council unwilling to challenge church school, Labour
council hiding its own incompetence and mistakes through kafkaeque
“procedures”, _ John Hemming listen! – to mask its failings and the religous
goings-on, the council turns around and sends the social services machine, and
all those tales about the English courts do not make me trust, they might be
our saviour. Help!
- May 13, 2011 at 16:26
-
You happy to throw all these people into the hands of the tabloids, as well
as every assorted nutter that wants to tell them how awful they are, then?
If not, tell us how you will stop them being dragged through the public
arena. And let’s not try to pretend that all these journalists , band wagon
politicians, bloggers and other special interest proponents out there are
universallyvnice people
-
April 24, 2011 at 16:13
-
Is not the Court Of Protection Straw’s bastard child? If so, then even with
him gone, none of this surprises me.
-
April 20, 2011 at 16:11
-
Los Angeles, California, USA, very similar things happen there too, judges
are above the law, they actually are the law and in a corrupted system where
nothing makes any sense anymore, an Alice in Wonderland world.
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/04/reports-of-elder-abuse-result-in.html
- April 20, 2011 at 12:28
-
Yes, obviously wanting to do the obscene in secret.
Killing people off
who are no more than what amounts to a nuisance is not yet acceptable.
We
don’t want to wake up the frogs (the ones in the kettle, not your neighbours,
Anna).
- April 20, 2011 at 10:19
-
Secret justice is no justice. The time is fast approaching, when all good
journalists should stand together, and report what is going on, and hang the
consequences. The courts could not put them all in jail, and think of the
rumpus if they tried.
Have you noticed, the BBC is completely silent on all this secrecy. One day
some of them may be the victim of this secret so called justice, and then they
will wonder how it happened to them. It will have happened because no one was
ready to speak up when they had the opportunity.
-
April 20, 2011 at 10:23
-
“Secret justice is no justice!
Exactly so! Well said!
- April 20, 2011 at 12:23
-
I don’t think this qualifies as secret justice. It’s not a hyper
injunction because there appears to be no restriction on anyone speaking
with an MP. It can’t be a super injunction because it has been reported
and, as far as I can tell, the case will be reported both in the press and
through normal academic sources.
The requirement for non-molestation ( if I may be allowed a little
hyperbole) by the press of witnesses for the lifetime of M does not strike
me as an unreasonable restriction.
- April 20, 2011 at 21:00
-
It won’t happen to any Beeboids if they have their Common Purpose card
about them.
- April 20,
2011 at 09:09
-
So how are the journalists meant to know where these 65 people are at all
times, given that they cannot contact them?
If one of them decides to talk a walk along Fleet Street or go for a stroll
in Wapping then the Met will have a field day.
- April 20, 2011 at 09:24
-
April 20, 2011 at 08:20
-
XX Tom April 20, 2011 at 04:05
Ah… New Labour, the gift that keeps giving. XX
And “Gift” in German means….”poison”. Rather apt.
- April 20,
2011 at 08:05
-
“…or by telephoning, text message, email or other means…”
Such as? Telepathy?
- April 20, 2011 at 08:11
- April 20, 2011 at 06:54
-
Well, the wholesale abuse of the Court of Protection and skullduggery by
care home trawling solicitors abusing powers of attorney garnered in highly
dubious circumstances to deprive families of their inheritances is already
happening – and it’s being kept secret not by injunction but by the simple
mechanism of threatening imprisonment for *any* disclosure as a contempt of
court.
It seems to an observer that the legals are the first and most aggressive
carrion on the scene at a tragedy. There have been suggestions of unnatural
collusion – but of course anybody sniffing around gets warned off…
-
April 20, 2011 at 06:17
-
Why do I find this so sinister? Because I can see no reason why this should
not be a matter which in the proper sense is in the public interest. A free
press is an essential element of a properly functioning democratic society. A
Court system which is secret and not open to debate or question – however
muddle headed or wrong – is the building block of dictatorship. Too often now
the Courts are shrouding themselves in secrecy. One has to wonder where this
will end. I am wondering in this case who actually applied for this order? And
why? And what is it that they prefer the not to know?
- April 20, 2011 at 04:05
-
Ah… New Labour, the gift that keeps giving.
- April 20, 2011 at 00:39
-
160ft – Anna. can you publish the names and whereabouts of those involved
so that I , as a grumpy old hack, can be sure to keep 160ft away from
them.
For all I know, they are right here, right now!
- April 19, 2011 at 23:14
-
Anna, sorry, not really OT, but I recently had someone close by someone
close by, who was nearly 100, fell out of her bed [despite having a 24/24
nurse], broke her hip and was hospitalised with everyone knowing, she wouldn’t
get out anymore. The hospital decided to starve her, which usually takes a
couple of days. It took her THREE weeks, before they finally, mercifully gave
her an overdose of morphine. THREE weeks, bloody cowards! I promised my Maman,
if ever she would lose her wit or be incurable, I would give her the stuff
myself.
- April 19, 2011 at 23:13
-
So has ‘Re: M’ been reported?
Where did this quote come from?
- April 20, 2011 at 06:23
-
Not yet reported Sam, but a few select media types were allowed to attend
the initial hearing.
Decision expected next week.
- April
20, 2011 at 08:10
-
Are you sure? Pretty sure it was in the ‘Mail’, I remember Tweeting it
at the time, and linking to it in some comments.
Yes, here it is. Assuming it’s the same one?
- April 20, 2011 at
08:21
-
Yep, sure. The press were admitted – and then injuncted.
I’m so loath to give a link to a certain newspaper which happily
reports on stories first read here without so much as a by your leave –
that I shall give you a link to ‘Fleet Street Blues’ who published a mere 45 minutes
after I did……
- April 20, 2011 at 08:35
-
Ah, right! I thought people were suggesting it wasn’t reported
at all…
- April 19, 2011 at 23:05
-
I thought “courts” were supposed to be open. Henry II would definitely not
have approved. He traipsed the Kingdom, mostly “doing justice” in person, and
in the open, for all to come and see.
It reminds me of an episode in London in the mid-90s over a parking ticket,
where, on the phone, when I was rung up by Wandsworth Soviet after weeks of
refusal by me to pay, I was informed that I (not personally) would be “put
before a paper court”, and then “bailiffs will seize your goods” (if I then
also refused to comply – it was £120 by then…)
- April 19, 2011 at 22:48
-
None of this comes as a surprise to me as there is no-one really there to
act or Independently Advocate for the Vulnerable person as more often than not
the OS who becomes the ‘lay’ client of the Solicitors for the Carers goes
along with what is in their interests and not the vulnerable person.
I know this from experience.
- April 19,
2011 at 22:40
-
more incentive to have lots of children, and make sure some of them go in
for medicine. Or to move to the Philippines.
-
April 19, 2011 at 21:55
-
Hmmmmm. I am finding this more and more sinister. Judges these days are so
lack lustre…
- April 19, 2011 at 21:57
-
April 19, 2011 at 21:52
-
Serious stuff. I shall think on it. Sounds to me like another example of
the Courts suppressing free circulation of information – which seems to be a
current trend
-
April 19, 2011 at 21:38
-
Any news organisation?
Considering that there isn’t a full and proper defintion of what a news
organisation is (other than some ancient law used by the Post Office for
newspapers [ICBW]) I wonder if there are some news organisations that haven’t
been told who to not speak with. I’m thinking along the lines of news
organisations which are run from France, are only published online, and whose
logo is a black and white animal.
- April 19, 2011 at 21:41
-
I’m a bit too wary of ‘contempt of court’ to risk that!
-
April 20, 2011 at 13:40
-
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do
nothing.
- April 19, 2011 at 21:38
-
Pretty scary stuff. Both the injunction and the fact that it’s deemed to be
in a person’s best interest to starve them to death. Not quite on topic, but
it made me think of the “lifeboat” song. (Skip to 2:40 for the music).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaG2-MGtCVE
- April 19, 2011 at 21:44
-
April 19, 2011 at 21:37
-
Seems more like a case of a Judges making up their own laws rather than
seeing laws of the land are followed.
- April 19, 2011 at 21:45
-
No, parliament gave them the power – that’s what happens when you get
laws passed by MPs who don’t understand what they are reading and just
follow the whips.
-
April 19, 2011 at 22:21
-
Was there perhaps a failing in the Upper Chamber as well? The Lords
committees used to scrutinise legislation line by line (the unsung part of
the Lords’ work). Have the recent changes to the Upper Chamber diluted
their previous care, or is someone abusing a power enshrined in the
legislation intended for other situations?
-
April 19, 2011 at 21:16
-
I need to think about and research this issue more
G
{ 39 comments }