PPT: commentary questions refusal of publication injunction

In commentary published on Inforrm’s Blog, Paul Wragg, Professor of Media Law at the University of Leeds, reports that on 3 November the High Court dismissed PPT’s application to prevent ITN and The Guardian permanently from publishing serious allegations against him. The man, identified only by initials, relied on Articles 2, 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, arguing that publication would expose him to a real and immediate risk of serious harm or death. According to the commentary, the judge acknowledged grave risks to his physical and psychological integrity. This is a secondary account, without direct verification of the judgment.

According to Wragg’s account, the court rejected an operational duty of protection under Articles 2 and 3 and found the legal basis for the Article 8 claim insufficient. Article 8 does not itself create a cause of action allowing one private party to restrain publication by another; nor does section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 confer jurisdiction that does not otherwise exist. PPT had not brought a misuse of private information claim. Alternatively, the judge would still have given greater weight to freedom of expression under Article 10, without determining whether the allegations were true.

Wragg criticises both the approach to Article 8 and the balancing of rights. He invokes ZXC v Bloomberg, which, on his reading, generally recognises an expectation of privacy concerning police investigations before charge, partly to prevent reputational harm and protect the presumption of innocence. The commentator questions why those considerations could not also apply to PPT and considers the priority given to the public interest in publication insufficiently justified against the risks acknowledged by the court. This is an interpretive criticism, rather than judicial recognition of a general right to anonymity for anyone facing allegations.