High Court Warning To Applicants Seeking To Derogate From Open Justice

The recent High Court ruling in G and G v Wikimedia Foundation Inc [2009] serves as a warning to any applicants for interim injunctions who may seek to rely on derogations from the open justice principle. Mr Justice Tugendhat held that any derogations must be ordered only when it is "necessary and proportionate" to do so and where the order is "limited in scope" to what is required in the particular circumstances of the case.

In this case, the judge refused to grant parts of the order sought, for which the applicants failed to provide adequate supporting evidence.

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The recent High Court ruling in G and G v Wikimedia Foundation Inc [2009] serves as a warning to any applicants for interim injunctions who may seek to rely on derogations from the open justice principle. Mr Justice Tugendhat held that any derogations must be ordered only when it is "necessary and proportionate" to do so and where the order is "limited in scope" to what is required in the particular circumstances of the case.

In this case, the judge refused to grant parts of the order sought, for which the applicants failed to provide adequate supporting evidence.

Background

The case of G and G v Wikimedia concerned an application to the High Court for a Norwich Pharmacal order against Wikimedia Foundation Inc, the Florida based organisation which runs online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. The purpose of a Norwich Pharmacal order is to compel a third party who is not alleged to be a wrongdoer, but is caught up in the wrongdoing of another, to identify or help identify the wrongdoer. In this case, a mother sought an order to require Wikimedia to disclose the IP address of the person who had amended an article on Wikipedia and inserted private and sensitive information in relation to her and her child. The applicant suspected that the person who had amended the website was the same individual that had sent her an anonymous communication about the relevant information in an attempt to blackmail her. She also suspected that the person was an employee who was engaged in a dispute with a company with which she was associated. The applicant sought the IP address so that she could identify the person who had disclosed the private material and seek legal remedies to prevent any further breach of privacy or disclosure of confidential information.

Wikimedia had indicated that it would not voluntarily disclose the IP address of the...