Barrister fined £5,000 for Supreme Court judgment leak
An environmental lawyer who broke an embargo by releasing details of a judgment of the UK Supreme Court before it was officially released, has been fined £5,000 for contempt of court.
A panel of three Supreme Court Justices, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Hamblen and Lord Stephens, found barrister Tim Crosland in criminal contempt of court, following proceedings brought by the Attorney General, for deliberately disclosing the result of the Supreme Court appeal concerning permission for the third runway at Heathrow Airport, prior to hand down of the judgment.
Mr Crosland acted for Plan B, who opposed the runway and unsuccessfully resisted the appeal. He chose to leak the judgment, which had been made available to him under embargo, claiming his action to raise awareness of the case was a reasonable and proportionate measure to prevent climate change.
Giving the findings of the panel, Lord Lloyd-Jones said it was not necessary for Mr Crosland to disclose the result: once the judgment had been handed down, the parties, the public and the media were free to scrutinise the judgment and comment on it. He dismissed an argument that freedom of expression under article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights provided a defence: the restriction on publication was temporary and a proportionate measure to achieve its ends, of circulating a draft judgment for corrections.
Mr Crosland's concerns and fears, and his disagreement with the decision, did not begin to justify his conduct. It was a "futile gesture", because the judgment would be available 22 hours later.
Dealing with penalty, Lord Lloyd-Jones noted that Mr Crosland (who had come to court expecting to be sent to prison) had not made any attempt to mitigate his conduct and had remained unrepentant save to apologise for the inconvenience to the staff of the Supreme Court. However the panel had decided that a fine of £5,000 was "necessary and proportionate to protect the integrity of the judiciary and its judgments".