Entertainment and Media in UK Law

They can, moreover, sometimes be based on the wrong questions and thus produce irrelevant or unhelpful responses or for some other reason, as in this case, be of no evidential value. Those directions can then be given in advance of the trial (see, for example, the further proceedings in the U K Channel Management case given by Lewison J, [2007] EWHC 2339 (Ch)).

There is no definition in the books as to what is a matter of public interest. All we are given is a list of examples, coupled with the statement that it is for the Judge and not for the jury. Whenever a matter is such as to affect people at large, so that they may be legitimately interested in, or concerned at, what is going on; or what may happen to them or to others; then it is a matter of public interest on which everyone is entitled to make fair comment.

As to the first ground, I do not think the reasonable man—who can also be described as an ordinary sensible man—should be envisaged as reading this article carefully. The relevant impression is that which would be conveyed to an ordinary sensible man (in this case having knowledge of the relevant circumstances) reading the article casually and not expecting a high degree of accuracy.

Compulsion is an invasion of a private right to keep one's documents to oneself. The public interest in privacy and confidence demands that this compulsion should not be pressed further than the course of justice requires. In order to encourage openness and fairness, the public interest requires that documents disclosed on discovery are not to be made use of except for the purposes of the action in which they are disclosed.