To Gag The Guardian!

or The Battle of Trafigura? (Allegedly) *

An attack has been made against free speech in parliament:

The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.

Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.

So from this story we can infer that Carter-Ruck have gagged the Guardian from reporting something for some reason. Internet consensus is building on what that is:

From Parliament.uk, “Questions for Oral or Written Answer beginning on Tuesday 13 October 2009″

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N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

Whether or not Carter-Ruck have slapped a gagging order on the press in parliament for the first time in history (surely it’ll be undone before lunch tomorrow) on behalf of Trafigura is anyone’s guess. I mean we just don’t know. We do know that it was the Guardian which broke the story about Trafigura in the Ivory Coast (here and here), and that they were the only paper to have been gagged, but we couldn’t possibly conclude anything else.

* with due credit to James Graham