PRINCE CHARLES 1: ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS 0


In an application for directions in a summary judgment application, Mr Justice Kitchen has found that material pertaining to Prince Charles’ journals, in which he recorded inter alia his impressions of his visit to 1997 Hong Kong should remain confidential pending the outcome of the summary judgment proceedings.

This round of the proceedings concerned
journals listed in Confidential Schedule 1 to the Particulars of Claim and the contents of pages 1 and 2 of Confidential Exhibit 2 (a list of the recipients of the Hong Kong Journal and an example of a copy covering letter that accompanied that journal).

Prince Charles at the 1997 Hong Kong handover

Kitchin J found that both sets of evidence were confidential (the defendant, Associated Newspapers, had accepted that this was the case with regard to Confidential Exhibit 2).

The judge also made an order under CPR
31.22. CPR 31.22 allows orders to be made “restricting or prohibiting the use of a document which has been disclosed [in legal proceedings], even where the document has been read to or by the court, or referred to, at a hearing which has been held in public”. Here there were good reasons for departing from the usual rule of publicity. The documents in issue were closely related to the very subject matter which Prince Charles was seeking to protect by means of this action for breach of confidence. Any chilling effect on third parties would be limited. Moreover, making the order would facilitate a public hearing by putting proper safeguards in place to protect the confidential information.

The IPKat reckons that this case promises to be excellent sport. In particular, the issue of which of and to what extent the Prince’s activities are in the public domain – a matter touched on briefly in the application - will be very tricky.
PRINCE CHARLES 1: ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS 0 PRINCE CHARLES 1: ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS 0 Reviewed by Anonymous on Monday, January 16, 2006 Rating: 5

No comments:

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.