In the UK, Parliament is supposed to be the highest court in the land, and (as such) its proceedings are immune from interference by any lower court. This is the source of Parliamentary Privilege.

The Speaker should direct the Clerk of the House to tell the judge to bugger off.

In the UK, Parliament is supposed to be the highest court in the land...

That was true, up until 12 days ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/01/supreme-court-law-reform

I wonder if the establishment of the Supreme Court on Oct. 1 was a factor weighing on the judge's decision to grant the gag order. Carter, Buck & Beelzebub might have argued that since Parliament is no longer the highest court, lower courts do in fact have authority to to this. Hopefully the new Supreme Court will spank that lower court judge.

Twitter and many British politics blogs are in uproar right this minute. The question which the gagging order refers to has been plastered all over social networks as well as links to the background story.

The irony is, now everybody is talking about it!

The relevant Parliamentary agenda seems to be
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmordbk2/91013o02.htm

and the troublesome questions appear to be the ones from Paul Farrelly, who before he became an MP in 2001 was for four years City Editor of the Guardian's sister paper, The Observer.

Please spread the word. Thank you.

Carter-Ruck is a notorious firm of disreputable lawyers. Replace the second half with a rhyming bit of Anglo-Saxon to find the full extent of their notoriety. The text of the question is:

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.

Here's the Minton Report: http://wikileaks.org/leak/waterson-toxicwaste-ivorycoast-%C3%A92009.pdf

Here's the Minton Report: http://wikileaks.org/leak/waterson-toxicwaste-ivorycoast-%C3%A92009.pdf

Here's the Minton Report: http://wikileaks.org/leak/waterson-toxicwaste-ivorycoast-%C3%A92009.pdf

I believe it will be:

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.

Here's the Minton Report: http://wikileaks.org/leak/waterson-toxicwaste-ivorycoast-%C3%A92009.pdf

Here's the Minton Report: http://wikileaks.org/leak/waterson-toxicwaste-ivorycoast-%C3%A92009.pdf

As a Brit I find this a sad reflection of GB. It is almost an characture of my country. This level of insanity is equaled by dishonesty of our Parliamentary and Political systems, which over the past 12 years has been thoroughly corrupted by our socialist government. Beware of socialist government, they lie and cheat more than the others because they think their cause is just. Then the rest of the country copies it. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

See also:

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/pollution-disaster-899

It's an absolute disgrace that a parliamentary question can be subject to reporting restrictions and the fact that this is being openly discussed online shows exactly how ineffectual and outdated the UK's media laws are.
This was all over twitter within minutes of the Guardian story going online and personally I think that was the whole point of the story. The Guardian knew that posting a piece about how they are being gagged would make a number of people curious to find out why (that was certainly the effect it had on me when I read it last night) and by using social networking they could pass it around very quickly.
It has now been blogged, covered in foreign newspapers like this and is in the public domain, albeit not in the UK.

Peter, if you think Blairs government was socialist you are deluded. It was the most right wing govt we have ever had. 6 wars/invasions, war crimes, takeover by the military industrial complex, selling off of public assets to PFI to make profit from services like education and the NHS and the most invasive surveillance society on the planet. To name but just a few.

@Pete-s - Socialist government? What planet are you living on? You sound more like a US Republican if you think this government is or ever has been Socialist. The fact that this gagging order is about protecting business would seem to indicate that this has nothing to do with Socialism.

Bob, that sounds like socialism to me. Stalin would be proud of Presidente Blair.

What is even more ridiculous is that the question is already in the public domain and even published on Parliaments own website:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmordbk2/91013o02.htm

(Paul Farelly, it's quite far down the page)

In fact there are 4 questions and they are all related: -

60
N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the Court of Appeal judgment in May 2009 in the case of Michael Napier and Irwin Mitchell v Pressdram Limited in respect of press freedom to report proceedings in court.
(292409)
61
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.
(293006)
62
N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will (a) collect and (b) publish statistics on the number of non-reportable injunctions issued by the High Court in each of the last five years.
(293012)
63
N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what mechanisms HM Court Service uses to draw up rosters of duty judges for the purpose of considering time of the essence applications for the issuing of injunctions by the High Court.

There was a related piece in last week's Private Eye too.

The UK is in serious danger of becomming a bananna republic. I'm glad I left!!

Far from this being "a sad reflection of GB", it is proving to be a remarkably uplifting and enhancing moment.

Our little bit of the political blogosphere, regardless of individual leanings, is as one in re-cycling, re-publishing and re-directing the details others have identified above. It is rapidly becoming a major PR disaster for Carter-Ruck and Trafigura. If the end is to open up the issues to scrutiny rather than merely sell newsprint, The Guardian has played a blinder.

Now, if only the US dross-gloss and associated Eurotrash (all the way to Saudi and beyond) were not so anxious to exploit the English (not to be confused with Scottish) legal take on libel, we might not be in this mess.

Far from this being "a sad reflection of GB", it is proving to be a remarkably uplifting and enhancing moment.

Our little bit of the political blogosphere, regardless of individual leanings, is as one in re-cycling, re-publishing and re-directing the details others have identified above. It is rapidly becoming a major PR disaster for Carter-Ruck and Trafigura. If the end is to open up the issues to scrutiny rather than merely sell newsprint, The Guardian has played a blinder.

Now, if only the US dross-gloss and associated Eurotrash (all the way to Saudi and beyond) were not so anxious to exploit the English (not to be confused with Scottish) legal take on libel, we might not be in this mess.

No, Malcolm, it is a sad reflection on the fact that Britain does not have a First Amendment. On the contrary, libel law works with a back-to-front burden of proof: the defendant has to prove his innocence. No legal aid is available in libel cases, so it's usual that the wealthier party wins. It's a massive stitch-up to defend the rich from scrutiny. And just because the political blogosphere has managed to get Carter-Ruck to back down on one case doesn't make the law any better.

Bring the Constitution home!

I fully agree with Malcolm Redfellow - because our laws are based on Magna Carta and Statutes and we do not have a full written constitution it makes it very difficult to have the truth published as I know to my own cost - Libel laws here are such that the ability to name and shame which is possible in the United States is impossible here in the UK - Our system of law here provides the element of "Innocent until proven guilty" - given that the matter is heard in a competent court of law. A UK citizen can thus be abused with impunity by fraudsters and conmen as those responsible can not be brought to justice without the petitioner having the means of paying for the huge legal costs that would be involved. The Press and media here intimidated by the Libel laws in the UK is not free to publish the truth of allegations regardless of the results of detailed investigation by the journalist concerned and the evidence supporting the claimant proving the claim to be solid in law.
Carter-Ruck should be struck off in my opinion.

"Carter-Ruck should be struck off in my opinion."

Conservative MP Peter Bottomley is going to complain to the Law Society about Carter-Ruck's attempt to gag reporting of Parliament.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/14/carter-ruck-gag-law-society

On a related note, Guardian commenters mentioning the B*rcl*ys word and the lack of coverage of B*rcl*ys tax-dodging business on the BBC despite the subject being covered in newspapers from the Financial Times to the (right wing) Daily Mail, and asking whether there is the potential for an appearance of conflict of interest given that B*rcl*ys chairman is a Senior Director on the BBC executivem, are apparently finding their contributions vanishing. That injunction's not Carter-Ruck, that's Freshfields (as per Paul Farrelly question).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/running/executive/eb_marcus_agius.shtml

19 November.

Guardian satirist Charlie Brooker has a column today on the Trafigura/Carter-Ruck situation:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/19/charlie-brooker-super-injunctions

Comments on the article relating to Barclays and/or their lawyers Freshfields, both mentioned in Farrelly's question 61 above, are still being suppressed by Guardian staff, without explanation, because explaining would reveal the existence of the ongoing super-injunction and they're not allowed to do that!

The link posted earlier to Mr Farrelly's original question on the Parliament website no longer works. The current replacement is:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm091019/text/91019w0006.htm