Without Prejudice returns – today from Gray’s Inn – to discuss the Leveson report and political reaction to it. Charon QC chairs as media lawyer and journalist David Allen Green, mature law student (and Without Prejudice sound consultant!) Jez Hindmarsh and I talk about:
- the legal basis of the inquiry;
- Leveson’s recommendations for a new kind of press self-regulation;
- the nature of the statutory underpinning he proposes
- validation and possible backstop regulation by Ofcom
- what it could mean for bloggers, and
- the unusual double ministerial statement in response.
We’re grateful to the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn for being our hosts for today’s edition. Thanks to their education and banqueting teams, who made us so welcome.
I think it’s a good discussion covering the main planks of the report and our reactions to it.
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Index on Censorship seem to have got it right here about the actual voluntary nature of any new regulatory body. http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2012/11/index-on-censorship-leveson-inquiry-report/
The statutory validator will not consider the regulator to be effective unless it covers all significant publishers of news. Paragraph p35 para 23 of Exec Summary: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc1213/hc07/0779/0779.pdf
backed up by p1754 para 3.14, Part K, Chapter 7: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc1213/hc07/0780/0780_iv.asp