Parliament: Freedom of Speech and the Rule of Law

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, for initiating this debate. He has calmly set out his arguments with authority and care, which comes as no surprise, despite his obvious disappointment at the conduct of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, in deliberately breaking a court order last October not to identify a party to a legal dispute. I agree with the noble and learned Lord’s arguments and his conclusions, subject to the tempering of those conclusions in the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and my noble friend Lord Norton.

I have known the noble Lord, Lord Hain, as a political opponent and as an acquaintance for the past 25 or 30 years. I sincerely admire much of what he has done in public life, and I desperately wanted him to convince me today that what he did last October was right, but I am afraid he failed. I draw the House’s attention to my interests set out in the register and, in particular, to the fact that for more than 40 years I have practised as a barrister specialising in media law, the law of privacy, confidence and contempt. When I was Solicitor-General, I frequently had to prosecute cases as contempt, dealing with respondents who had in one way or another interfered with the course of justice in particular cases.

That said, I am entirely familiar with the vital importance in our democracy of free speech in and out of Parliament, the importance of having free media and fearless journalists, and the importance of having laws that protect our right to freedom of expression. Any curtailment of that right must be necessary and proportionate and, if our freedom of expression is to be guaranteed or its curtailment is to be legitimate and acceptable, we can in the final analysis rely only on the law and our justice system to protect our interests,

If we are to rely on our justice system and the law to provide that protection, we need to accept that sometimes, for the greater good of society, decisions or laws may not always suit us personally. For example, I may prefer to keep some information about me private because it is personally or politically embarrassing, whereas someone else may feel that that that information ought, in the public interest, to be made known. I may find somebody else’s comments about me or my conduct offensive and unwarranted, while that person may hold the view that his opinion of me or my conduct is warranted and entirely fair.

Over the centuries, there has been a healthy but often heated debate about where as a general rule, and where in a particular case, the line lies between on the one hand an individual’s right to privacy and the protection of their reputation, which I distinguish from self-esteem, and on the other the right to freedom of speech. Of course, there will be occasions when people confuse what is interesting to the public and what is in the public interest but, absent an agreement on the matter between the individual concerned and the person wanting to publicise it, in a civilised society we ask a dispassionate, disinterested judge to assess the facts of the matter and apply the law, be it our own domestic statute and common law or imported law in international treaties or conventions, such as the European Convention on Human Rights.

I venture to think that judges trying defamation cases in the High Court or dealing with a contempt matter before the implementation of the Human Rights Act would have taken the same liberal view of the law relating to freedom of speech as they do now, as well as recognising that some things are matters for Parliament and some are matters for the courts. Sir Stephen Sedley, a former Lord Justice of Appeal, had it exactly right when he said, in explaining the real significance of freedom of expression in a case involving the unlawful arrest of a street preacher:

“Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having”.


However, he also said on another occasion:

“If Parliament does not like what the courts do, it changes the law. The sovereignty of Parliament as the final source of law and the sovereignty of the courts in interpreting and enforcing the law are the twin pillars on which democracy and the rule of law in the UK rest”.


“Exclusive cognisance” is an old-fashioned term but I think we know what it means.

We all have rights and obligations that need to be respected if we are to live in a tolerant society. Call it a rules-based society, call it respect for the rule of law, call it a world in which we accept that there is no reason not to have a bit of give and take—an understanding that sometimes we have to meet half way and that we cannot always have things our own way—but, however we describe it, we need to live our public and private lives in a way that respects the opinions and customs of others. That does not mean that we are not allowed opinions, that we cannot criticise judges for the decisions they make or that we all have to think and do the same. One of the central purposes of this very Parliament is to provide a forum for argument.

Through the Bill of Rights, the law of the land protects us from arrest or litigation for what we say in this House and in the other place, but we cannot, without damaging our way of life, take unto ourselves the power to make decisions which are entirely or largely selfish. The Bill of Rights enshrined in law what has come confusingly to be called “parliamentary privilege”. Privilege is a legal term with several different meanings depending upon its context.

We know now that our privileges not to be arrested and sued for what we say here are not our own but are held on trust from the public so that we can the better carry out our public duties. That relationship between the public, our uncodified constitutional arrangements and us as trustees is very delicate, and much of it is based on convention, mutual respect and understanding for and between the different elements of our mutual system of law and governance. So it is all the more important for the proper working of our Parliament, courts and Government that none of those constitutional bodies behaves in a way that damages that respect or mutual understanding. In this I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas.

Time prevents me from developing these arguments further, but I urge my noble friend the Minister and all noble Lords that, if we are to run this place in a civilised and sensible way, we must have mutual respect for the various institutions of government and not trample all over them for personal gain.