Lord Justice Leveson: statute might be needed to back press regulation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/23/leveson-press-regulation

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Lord Justice Leveson has spelled out for the first time why a degree of statutory regulation might be necessary to ensure effective reforms of press regulation following the phone-hacking scandal.

Leveson said at his inquiry into media standards and ethics on Wednesday morning that a new law might have to be put on the statute books if the new system involved a ombudsman, as this would be the only way to make that office effective in resolving disputes over issues such as libel or invasions of privacy.

He told former Conservative heritage secretary Stephen Dorrell, who was giving evidence to the inquiry, that statutes would have to be laid down to make the ombudsman's view legally binding in any proceedings.

"[Statutes would be necessary] for [the ombudsman's] view to be relevant in civil proceedings, however one mediates it and whether it's some fast-track system to whether it's through the court," the judge said.

Dorrell, who as heritage secretary in the 90s had responsibility for media policy and regulation, had earlier told the inquiry that he "remained deeply sceptical" about the need for statutory regulation of the press and argued that a new system involving a powerful ombudsman could work without intervention by the state.

He said "recent wrongdoing" such as phone hacking was a failure of management not of regulation.

But Leveson told him that a statute giving legal recognition to the ombudsman's views would not amount to parliamentary control.

"I've not said the state should have a view of what is good practice," he said. "I am not suggesting that the state should have any view on the content."

Leveson said, however, that "the state should have a view on the mechanisms that are set up" to regulate the press.

Earlier Dorrell gave an insight into the Tories' decision to "do nothing" with the second Calcutt report into press reforms when he was heritage secretary between 1994 and 1995.

The Calcutt report had proposed outlawing doorstepping, bugging and long-lens photography as part of a bid to curtail what was seen as increasing invasion of privacy by the press.

After discussions with the then home secretary and the attorney general it was decided making invasion of privacy a criminal offence would not be practical nor was there public appetite for such a move, Dorrell told the inquiry.

He said that the then prime minister, John Major, told him that it could backfire horribly – he felt editors would love the chance to be "martyrs".

In a confidential memo to Dorrell shown to the inquiry, Major said: "It is possible that a number of editors would not be averse to martyr status and a spell in prison.

"This would do wonders for their paper's circulation and would be worth a fortune in free publicity."

The cabinet at the time was concerned about the depth of hostility to statutory regulation and a Dorrell memo to Major warned that such a move would cause "a major row" with the press. He cited a Daily Mail leader column as an "indicator of the strength of feeling" in Fleet Street.

Headlined "Who are they to cry foul?", the Mail asked if "in the current climate of sleaze and corruption, any political clamour for privacy legislation is liable to be dismissed as little better than a self-protection racket."

Dorrell told how a cabinet committee meeting was convened on 15 June 1995 attended by Lord Hunt, now the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission. It was agreed that they would "do nothing" with the Calcutt recommendations for criminal penalties for invasions of privacy.

"We had to present our conclusion that we were going to do nothing in the least bad way," said Dorrell.

A month later he was replaced by Virginia Bottomley and a white paper on media reform published, he added, giving the impression that they were taking the issue forward.

The inquiry also heard how Dorrell thought the framework for the fledgling PCC, which was set up in 1991, was "vague", "perfunctory" and lacking in any "real sanctions".

Nontheless, he was opposed to statutory regulation. He though the issue was that such a "cure" could be "worse than the disease".

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