In a special sitting last Sunday, the High Court found that six national newspapers were not in breach of the terms of an injunction obtained by Eoin McKeogh, a DCU student.
The application by Mr McKeogh arose as a result of the misidentification of him, in an online video that went viral, as the person who had avoided a taxi fare. Following the posting of the footage on the Internet, a number of anonymous Internet users indentified Mr McKeogh as the person who was guilty of taxi fare evasion. In actual fact, Mr McKeogh was in Japan at the time of the incident and it has subsequently been confirmed that the person in the video is Eoin Black.
Mr McKeogh was concerned that the Internet commentary would affect his ability to secure employment in Japan following the completion of his studies. As such, he successfully obtained temporary injunctions against a number of Internet companies including Facebook and Google, prohibiting the rebroadcasting or republishing of the material in question.
Following the granting of these injunctions, Mr McKeogh further sought to prevent six national newspapers from naming him in their court reports. In effect, he was seeking an anonymised injunction, which is an interim injunction that restrains the publication of information which concerns the applicant (in this case Mr McKeogh) and which is said to be confidential or private. Such an injunction would have prevented the media from naming him as the person who obtained the initial injunctions against the Internet companies.
Having considered the submissions made by the legal advisers for Mr McKeogh and the various newspapers, Judge Peart held that “if justice is to be done, it must be seen to be done”. He was of the view that the facts of the case were not “so exceptional that it would allow the Court” to prevent the newspapers from naming Mr McKeogh.
As recently outlined here, a report published by a government appointed committee in the UK, concluded that anonymised injunctions were derogations from the principle of open justice and should only be granted in exceptional circumstances. Unfortunately for Mr McKeogh, it would seem that the Irish Courts share a similar view.
Contributed by Mark O’Shaughnessy and Carol Plunkett.
