Daily View: What does John Terry's case mean for privacy?

Clare Spencer | 10:30 UK time, Monday, 1 February 2010

John Commentators consider what England football captain John Terry's failed super-injunction will have on the privacy of other prominent people.

Matthew Syed in the Times suggests that John Terry did the legal establishment a favour:

"By brazenly attempting to gag the press on a story that was patently fair game he has stung the legal establishment into an overdue shift in the balance between privacy and free speech."

The Telegraph editorial welcomes what it hopes is the end of the super injunction:

"This is not about prurience or a desire to assuage a public appetite for tittle-tattle. There are bigger issues at stake. The courts have been increasingly using 'super-injunctions' - catch-all measures that make the reporting of their existence unlawful, as in the Trafigura pollution case, when even a parliamentary question referring to the injunction could not be reported. If we have now seen the end of the super-injunction and a reassertion of the public interest, then it has been a good week for a free press."

Marcel Berlins in the Guardian predicts that John Terry's case will not see an end to super-injunctions:

"I won't go into the procedural details, but the judge was critical of the way Terry's evidence had been presented in court, and of other procedural shortcomings. He also came to the conclusion that Terry was more concerned about what the negative publicity would do to his sponsorship deals and business opportunities than to the privacy of his family."

Stephen Glover in the Independent says the ruling astonished lawyers:

"Where does this case leave the press? Mr Justice Tugendhat sounds like an enlightened man. I was struck by his observation that 'freedom to live as one chooses is one of the most important freedoms. But so is the freedom to criticise the conduct of others as being socially harmful or wrong.' That was not the line Mr Justice Eady took during the Max Mosley case. It remains to be seen whether Mr Justice Tugendhat's ruling marks a sea change, or a momentary zigzag. Rest assured that Schillings and Carter Ruck will not give up, and remember that what one judge gives back another can take away again."

Jim White in the Telegraph explains why the case is important:

"With some hush money here, a legal writ there, all will be well, and he can carry on until next time. This is what makes last week so significant: his attempt to buy silence through the court, apparently in order to protect his off-field activities, backfired horribly. What might have been no more than a storm in a D-cup had his affair been exposed by the News of the World alone, has become something of national consequence. And with his actions has gone much of the wider sympathy."

Politics blogger Iain Dale suggests that politicians need to look at whether this area of law needs reform:

"The rich and famous should not be able to use the law in ways which are not open to the rest of us. Super Injunctions appear to be used by celebrities to invoke a privacy law by the back door."

Janet Street-Porter commends the judge for deciding that the case was in the public interest:

"He might complain that it wasn't in the public interest - but the judge rightly disagreed, pointing out that Terry was more concerned about losing his sponsorship deals than anything else.
By trying to manipulate the law, Terry reinforces the notion that wealthy footballers think they are a breed apart from the rest of us."

The judge found that the matters in this case had already been widely discussed, making an injunction pointless. A partner at Berwin Leighton Paisner who has been involved in a number of celebrity super-injunction cases, Graham Shear, said on the Today Programme that the internet could have an effect on privacy laws:

"If a matter comes into the public domain internationally or outside of the UK, it could have an effect on how these injunctions work."

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