So those of you outside the UK may not of heard of this scandal. King Charles disgraced brother prince Andrew has been caught gong into business with a Chinese businessman who was later denied entry to the UK for being a Chinese spy…
The actual allegations are not the subject of this pitting (given the horrific nature of the previous allegations against prince Andrew nothing like this could make him go any further down in my estimation, he is an utter scumbag)
What I am pitting is the fact the identity of the Chinese spy in question is the subject of the privacy injunction, stopping the UK press (or anyone else* in the UK) from identifying him (can only refered to as “H6”). WTAF? Even if you think a “right to privacy” (only enforceable by those with incredibly highly paid lawyers) is a thing. This is not the identity of Prince Williams bit on the side. This is a Chinese spy whose been in business with the Kings brother for several years. Knowing his identity is absolutely in the public interest, and any “right to privacy” is insignificant compared to the duty of the press to report on it.
Not to mention that any idea this is a “right” is made a mockery of by the countless similar cases where some poor asylum seeker, who doesn’t have the privilege of being friends with royalty and affording the best lawyers money can buy, has their name and face spread all over the Daily Mail as they are vilified.
The second part of this pitting is the is the fact that I’m no longer in the UK, I live in the US now. Whatever batshiat injunction the UK has passed should not effect my ability to know the name of the spy has recruited the brother of the head of state of a major NATO ally. So it will be mentioned by AP? CNN? ABC? Nope, none of them mention the name either:
It seems only one outlet on the entire Internet (as reachable by my US Google) mentions the name “Radio Free Asia”. Who are, ironically, funded by the US government (specially by a bill sponsored by a senator name Joe Biden ) https://www.rfa.org/english/
‘*’ - there is talk of MPs revealing the name under parliamentary privilege, though that makes this doubly pittable, as the MP saying they will do this most loudly is racist human shitstain Nigel Farage.
As a non-Brit who also lives in the US, and therefore not subject to the jurisdiction of HRH or his laws, allow me to take this opportunity to display more integrity than our craven billionaire-bootlicking media and say, per OP’s cite, that the individual in question is named Yang Tengbo.
According to the Guardian report on the matter, his identity is protected by an interim anonymity order.
The deal here is that he was initially excluded from the UK by a decision of the Home Secretary — an executive action, not the outcome of a judicial proceeding. He then sought to have this decision reviewed by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. Since the Commission has to consider questions of national security, and whether they have been property assessed and taken into account by Ministers, it often acts on the basis of secret evidence. An appellant is represented by a “special advocate” — a lawyer vetted by the security services who is appointed to represent the appellant, but who doesn’t disclose the secret evidence to the appellant, and therefore can’t take his instructions about it.
The upshot of all this is that your case gets decided at least partly on the basis of evidence you know nothing about, and on which you’ve had at best a very limited and indirect opportunity to make observations on, or attempt to rebut. There’s obviously a fairly heavy compromise of the principles of natural justice here.
Recognising, I think, that this is a shitty process, the Commission fairly readily grants anonymity orders when they are sought. The point of the underlying law is to exclude people from the UK where the public interest seems to require it. But unless there are considerations of national security which require them also to be publicly identified as spies or terrorists without their having any opportunity to challenge the identification, either in the Commision or in the court of public opinion, the Commission is generally somewhat open to the argument that national security can be adequately protected without their being publicly identified.
Anyone who thinks there is a public interest in naming the individual concerned can apply to the Tribunal to have the anonymity order lifted.
That’s a bit of “let them eat cake” statement. Sure this incredibly rich, powerful individual can use the power of the state to bankrupt me and potentially send me to prison if I use his name, but that’s ok, all I need to do if that happens is use my team of incredibly high paid lawyers to appeal the order, I mean we all have at least one QC on retainer at any given time, don’t we?
The fact that someone (possibly Yang himself, if he is to be believed) with access to very expensive lawyers as able to appeal this to the high court (in this one case where pretty much everyone across the political spectrum thought it was BS) doesn’t make any less of a travesty. It also doesn’t make the decision of the US news companies to go along with the injunction any less ridiculous and cowardly
Watch out pal. A few months ago the MAGAsphere was all abuzz when the UK police commissioner said he would demand extraditions of Americans who break UK hate speech laws online- getting them extradited to the UK.
They’ll get you.
(now, to be clear, it was never more than a hollow and frankly idiotic threat. But for a while the MAGAs sure were exercised about it)
Though this is very different matter to the OP, I don’t agree with the UK hate speech laws and think the US constitution does a much better job of protecting individual rights to speech and religion than the UK and Europe (for now at least, can’t speak for the next 4 years ) , but at least the hate speech laws apply to everyone equally. But these privacy injunctions are far more agregious as they fundamentally are only available to rich powerful people with access to the extremely expensive lawyers.
Additionally I think a lot of what people went to prison for in aftermath of the UK riots would not be protected speech in the US either. It wasn’t “saying horrid things about immigrants” it was “telling people to burn down this specific hotel full of asylum seekers”
Most of the US news companies have business interests in the UK too, business interests which might be directly threatened by running afoul of the UK government.
Other way round. Yang is not a typical case. Most of the people who are the subject of exclusion orders are neither rich nor powerful, whereas the media organisations that seek to have anonymity orders lifted are both. One of the factors that goes into the Commission’s decisions about anonymity orders is the disparity in resources between the kind of person that gets excluded from the UK and the media organisations that seek to publicise their exclusion.
Exactly my point, and all those people are regularly the subject of incredibly intrusive, racist tabloid attacks with no recourse. On the other hand the people with the legal resources to apply to the kings bench of the high court for an anonymity order absolutely are very rich (or, you know, besties with the brother of the guy who’s bench it is)
Yang didn’t apply to the High Court for an anonymity order; the order was made by the Commission, in the course of his application to have his exclusion reviewed. That’s how these orders generally get made. .I don’t know for sure, but my guess it’s media organisations who wanted the interim anonymity order lifted who escalated the matter to the High Court.
)
) , but at least the hate speech laws apply to everyone equally. But these privacy injunctions are far more agregious as they fundamentally are only available to rich powerful people with access to the extremely expensive lawyers.