British Court Bans Publication of Tiger Woods Photos That May Not Exist: Talk About Prior Restraint!

Three cheers (at least) to the celebrity gossip website TMZ.com, which has struck a blow for press freedom by publishing the full text of a British judge's injunction banning publication of pictures that, if they even exist, may be embarrassing to Tiger Woods. The injunction, issued by Sir David Eady, a UK high-court judge who has become notorious worldwide for his use of Britain's draconian libel laws to restrict or penalize aggressive reporting by both British and foreign media, banned British media from any attempt to "publish, further publish, syndicate, communicate, use or disclose to any other person" all or any part of information described in an attachment to the order. The attachment describes the information that the injunction bans from publication as "any photographs, footage or images taken or obtained of the Claimant naked or any naked parts of the claimant's body or of him involved in any sexual activity."

Justice Eady's injunction, which indicates it was issued without giving any notice to the unnamed media outlet or outlets to whom it is meant to apply, also forbids publication of the injunction itself or any documents relating to it. In a letter also published by TMZ, Schillings, a large London law firm that says it represents Woods, says that despite the contents of the order, it should not be "taken as an admission that any such photographs exist." It adds that Woods is "not aware of any images and in any event he would not have consented to any such photographs being taken nor would he have consented to the dissemination or exploitation of the same."

Despite the order's strict terms, news about the injunction was published both in the international media and in the UK media. The website of the Daily Mail, one of Britain's most aggressive and influential tabloids, went to town on the issue, despite the injunction, with this story, which carried the headline "Tiger Woods' lawyers act over nude pictures that don't exist."

The Woods injunction surfaces just as Britain's government, led by Jack Straw, the secretary of state for justice, has started to consider possible reforms to Britain's harsh libel laws, which strongly favor the plaintiff and have made the gothic High Court complex near Fleet Street in Central London a "libel tourism" mecca for wealthy celebrities and foreigners trying to keep embarrassing information out of both the British and foreign (including U.S.) press. Earlier this year, Britain's Guardian newspaper, an increasingly influential Web presence on both sides of the Atlantic, reported that it was temporarily banned by a court injunction from reporting on a question in Parliament about a toxic dumping scandal in Africa. The injunction was subsequently lifted.

Several American states, and Congress, have been considering laws to bar the enforcement of UK libel judgments in the American courts after Eady decided a case in favor of a Saudi tycoon and his sons, who had sued an American academic in Britain for alleging in a book that the Saudi was involved in financing terrorism. Even though the American author's book only sold 23 copies in Britain, Eady awarded the Saudi plaintiffs £110,000 pounds (approximately $175,207) in damages.