§ Mr. John MorrisTo ask the Attorney-General what consideration he has given to the recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the cases ofThe Sunday Times and others v. the United Kingdom and others.
§ The Attorney-GeneralI have considered the judgments carefully.
The background is that The Observer and The Guardian published reports in June 1986 on the Australian "Spycatcher" proceedings. The reports gave details of some of the contents of the manuscript of the book, "Spycatcher", by Peter Wright. I obtained an interlocut-ory injunction in the High Court on 11 July 1986 preventing The Observer and The Guardian from publishing further "Spycatcher" material. On 12 July 1987, The Sunday Times published extracts from the book. On 14 July 1987 the book was published in the United States. I obtained an interlocutory injunction in the High Court on 16 July 1987 preventing The Sunday Times from publishing further "Spycatcher" material. The House of Lords confirmed the interlocutory injunctions against the publishers of all three newspapers on 30 July 1987. At the hearing of the main action on 13 October 1988 the House of Lords discharged all the injunctions.
The European Court of Human Rights found that there was no breach of article 10 of the convention in respect of the injunctions imposed on the publishers of The Observer and The Guardian for the period up to publication of "Spycatcher" in the United States. The court found that there was a breach of article 10 of the convention in respect of the injunctions imposed on the publishers of The Observer and The Guardian for the period following publication in the United States. The court also found a breach of article 10 in respect of The Sunday Times injunctions, which were imposed when the book had been published in the United States and was being freely imported into this country.
250WIn respect of the period up to 30 July 1987, the court found that the injunctions were necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security and for maintaining the authority of the judiciary. The court thus confirmed the key principle that the Crown was seeking to protect—namely, the right of the Crown to apply to the national courts to restrain publication of confidential material that is not already in the public domain when it is necessary to restrain publication for the protection of national security.
The court's ruling shows that material that has entered the public domain by whatever route has lost its confidentiality and that the further publication of such material cannot be restrained. That ruling is consistent with the conclusions of the House of Lords of 13 October 1988, which held that publication of extracts from the book could not be further restrained in the light of the widespread publication of the material that had already occurred. In those proceedings the House of Lords upheld a lifelong duty of confidentiality to the Crown on the part of members and former members of the security and intelligence services of the Crown. That important principle is not weakened by the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.
The European Court of Human Rights also found that there was no breach of article 13 of the convention, which provides for everyone to have an effective remedy before a national authority, or of article 14, which provides that the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in the convention shall be secured without discrimination.