Vox quotes a judgement in the UK where a cuckolded husband has an injunction against him, preventing him from naming [anywhere or in any form] the public figure who slept with his wife. The adulterer is being legally protected from the victim, in other words. Vox comments:
This is a powerful demonstration of the way that Western governments are increasingly taking positions which not only attack traditional morality, but do so in a manner that demonstrates their intrinsic opposition to the very rights which they are supposedly protecting. One would think that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" would easily, automatically, be trumped by the husband's free speech and economic freedom rights; after all, one cannot slander someone so long as one speaks the truth, nor should one be prevented from profiting from his unique knowledge. That is, after all, the entire premise of the media business, that people will pay for knowledge they do not currently possess.
You might agree that, quite apart from the rank injustice of this decision, it points to something further – that the justice system is actively protecting the perpetrator and blocking the victim. This is a convolution which Vox [and I] understand only too well from our increasingly marginalized vantage point and it’s numbing that whereas before it was all done surreptitiously, now they are openly turning justice on its head and brazenly lying to the people.
‘They’ is people very high up who are the driving force behind the moral equivalence and the marginalizing of any voice which could have spoken out against what is going on. Their deep cynicism is born of the knowledge that the majority either can’t see where the trail leads back to or will simply refuse to accept that it is so, preferring varied sociological explanations.
This is a powerful demonstration of the way that Western governments are increasingly taking positions which not only attack traditional morality, but do so in a manner that demonstrates their intrinsic opposition to the very rights which they are supposedly protecting. One would think that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" would easily, automatically, be trumped by the husband's free speech and economic freedom rights; after all, one cannot slander someone so long as one speaks the truth, nor should one be prevented from profiting from his unique knowledge. That is, after all, the entire premise of the media business, that people will pay for knowledge they do not currently possess.
You might agree that, quite apart from the rank injustice of this decision, it points to something further – that the justice system is actively protecting the perpetrator and blocking the victim. This is a convolution which Vox [and I] understand only too well from our increasingly marginalized vantage point and it’s numbing that whereas before it was all done surreptitiously, now they are openly turning justice on its head and brazenly lying to the people.
‘They’ is people very high up who are the driving force behind the moral equivalence and the marginalizing of any voice which could have spoken out against what is going on. Their deep cynicism is born of the knowledge that the majority either can’t see where the trail leads back to or will simply refuse to accept that it is so, preferring varied sociological explanations.
I thought this seemed very odd, too, but then I looked again and it's only an interim injunction until a full hearing can be arrange in early February. In effect, the court's being asked to adjudicate on whether, as you suggest, the "reasonable expectation of privacy" is easily, automatically, trumped by the husband's free speech and economic freedom rights and, if so, whether this because free speech always trumps privacy or if, in certain circumstances (which may well not be this one) one does enjoy an expectation of privacy.
ReplyDeleteAll they've said, I think, is that they don't want to decide until they've heard full submissions from both sides and that, since they've been asked to involve themselves, they won't have their decision pre-empted.
The political umpire posted about it here and also thought it was weird. I read in teh Independent that there was a worry about the mental state of the wife of the aldulterer- don't know if that's true or not- apparantly she had threatened suicide. But it is a very odd case that I don't really understand. I hope somebody in teh blogosphere works out what is going on.
ReplyDeleteGood post.
Thanks for the additional info, lads and it certainly shows one needs to have ALL the info before rushing to judgement. Interim injunction and the wife's mental state certainly explain a lot and yet ... in the end, it's like sausages - you can boil, grill or fry them but in the end, they're still sausages. These two still did the dirty on the husband and because it's a public figure, his identity is being protected.
ReplyDelete