The Commissioner of Police and Another (Petitioners) v Bermuda Broadcasting Company Ltd and Others
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe |
| Judgment Date | 11 July 2007 |
| Neutral Citation | [2007] UKPC 46 |
| Docket Number | Petition No 48 of 2007 |
| Court | Privy Council |
| Date | 11 July 2007 |
[2007] UKPC 46
Privy Council
Present at the hearing:-
Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe
Lord Carswell
Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury
[Delivered by Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe]
Late on the afternoon of 26 June 2007 the Board heard an ex parte application for an interlocutory injunction to run until the hearing of an appeal for which permission had been granted, only a few minutes before, by the Court of Appeal of Bermuda. The Board was informed that the Court of Appeal had ruled that it had no jurisdiction to grant an interlocutory injunction pending an appeal to the Privy Council. Their Lordships announced that (for reasons to be given later) they would grant the injunction, but only until the hearing of the appeal or further order in the meantime, with liberty to any of the respondents to apply to discharge or vary the injunction. These are the Board's reasons.
The background is that on 23 May 2007 a Bermudian television station, BZM, reported that it had in its possession documents relating to a police investigation into the affairs of the Bermuda Housing Corporation. On 1 June 2007 the Mid-Ocean News, a weekly newspaper published in Bermuda, devoted most of its front page to a story about the investigation. It asserted that the investigation was into suspicions of improper land transactions in which senior members of the government were implicated. The story continued on two other pages. In the following days it reappeared in other media in Bermuda.
On 7 June counsel for the appellants, the Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General of Bermuda, applied ex parte to the Chief Justice for injunctive relief against the respondents, two Bermudian broadcasting companies and two Bermudian newspaper publishers (two of the respondent companies named in the writ are not in fact the most appropriate companies in the relevant media groups, but no point has been taken on that). The main complaint was of breach of confidence, on the basis that the stories about the Bermuda Housing Corporation investigation were based on confidential information derived from police files which had been either stolen or improperly accessed. The Chief Justice insisted on the application being heard inter partes, as a result of which the hearing did not take place until about 6.15 pm on 7 June. At that hearing the Chief Justice accepted undertakings from the two respondents who were represented, and made an...
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