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Protect our freedom to call government to account
ONE of the most significant court cases involving press freedom ended on Friday – but, surprisingly, little space was given to it by newspapers.
After a short hearing at Kingston Crown Court, the judge threw out the prosecution’s 18-month case against a journalist, Sally Murrer, 50, saying it should not have been brought to the court.
Ms Murrer, a Milton Keynes local journalist, and a mother of three, faced similar charges to those in the Damien Green case; that, under ancient common law, she had conspired to commit misconduct in public life. In her case she had written stories that the police didn’t want published which had come from police contacts.
She had been arrested, strip-searched, held in police cells for 36 hours, with her conversations bugged.
Her barrister, Gavin Millar QC, brother of Fiona Millar, education campaigner in Camden, mounted a brilliant defence under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act which the judge described as a masterclass in press freedom.
If journalists are to face imprisonment for publishing stories the authorities don’t want to see in print, press freedom in this country will come to an end.
One of the main roles of the press should be to hold authority to account.
It would, of course, be ludicrous to suggest that this case – and that of Damien Green’s – shows we are entering a police state.
But infringements of liberties in recent years, the long detention of prisoners without charges under terror legislation, the growing surveillance of citizens, are signs that things are going wrong.
As the cross-party supporters of Damien Green say, it is an MP’s duty to hold the government to account.
The leaked information he received on immigration didn’t threaten national security – it simply embarrassed the government. If a civil servant breaks his contract by leaking documents to outside agencies, his minister should use departmental procedure to deal with the breach.
The Home Office went over the top when they called the police in. Probably, politics was at the heart of this, not commonsense.
Even so, as admitted yesterday (Wednesday) by the Speaker of the House, the Sergeant At Arms made a howler when she allowed the police to search Damien Green’s office – without a warrant. Yet another breach of human rights!
Since the 17th-century freedoms have been won, bit by bit, in Britain, and parliament, with all its faults, provides the framework for a participatory democracy. Press freedom is part of the crucible.
Both need nourishing. |
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