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responsibilities for the country. If these allegations are proven... it does call

into question his role as England captain. I speak to the FA on a regular basis

so I will be asking what their viewpoint is and we will see what comes of it in

the future.

On the other hand, Alastair Campbell, in the Turf Moor Diaries blogthat celebrates his support of Burnley, wrote: He may be a multi-millionaire

superceleb with a potentially legend-making World Cup ahead of him, but

yesterday he was just one more man worrying what his missus was going to

do to him when he got home from work.

So this could be just one more example of the public being interested in

events that are not necessarily in the public interest, a scenario used by

Andrew Marr, when reiterating, in this issue of the BJR, his support for a

privacy law. Clearly the Terry case is not an important matter of publicconcern, as was the oil trading company Trafiguras use of a super-injunction

to prevent The Guardian reporting a parliamentary question about the

alleged dumping of toxic waste. But such have been the highly-derided

judgments delivered by Mr Justice Eady after employment of this

indiscriminate legal firewall that it comes as no surprise when celebrities

behaving badly are advised to reach for it as soon as an inquisitive newspaper

starts probing.

The most obnoxious aspect of the super-injunctions is that their essenceis secrecy there is a reek of Star Chamber about the whole process. One

particularly welcome aspect of Mr Justice Tugendhats judgment was his

criticism of Terrys lawyers, Schillings, for failing to inform the News of the

World, which was getting ready to publish the Terry story, about the legal

steps they were taking on the footballers behalf. The judges ruling

demonstrates that there are severe limitations to the scope of super-

injunctions. Now the Justice Ministry, involved in consultations with the

judiciary and the media, has to find a way to bring them under control for thesake of open justice. BH

BritishJourn

alismR

eviewvol.21no.1

march2010

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