TNAG-1694-FCO40-2344-Broadcasting-in-Hong-Kong-1987 — Page 78

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services in the British Security Service; and, secondly, a risk of similar misbehaviour by other officers of the Security Service. Financial compensation, it is claimed, would not be an adequate remedy for the plaintiff The defendants should therefore be restrained from publication.

The defendants, while accepting that the Attorney has an arguable case whether in breach of confidence or fiduciary duty, contend that the Attorney has shown no interest still to be protected so that a grant of injunctive relief would be futile. In any event, it is said that any interest the Attorney may have in restraining publication is inadequate to justify any restriction on the public interest in free and unfettered dissemination of news and information, whether in the press or otherwise. In other words, there should be no interference with freedom of speech. I have not used the word "right" in connection with freedom of speech.

There is no right in Hong Kong,

There is, for example, no

at least in the constitutional sense. equivalent to the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, yet even in the United Statos of America that freedom is not absolute exceptions are recognised.

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I have been referred to a wealth of authority

I think it is

from Blackstone onwards concerning freedom of speech. sufficient if I say that the Law, that is, the Law in Hong Kong, recognises the extreme importance of freedom of speech and a free press, in the same way as it also recognises the need to preserve secrecy or confidentiality in appropriate circumstances.

It is at this point it appeared at first that

The

the parties found themselves a considerable distance apart. Attorney contended that once he has shown an arguable case, which is conceded, there is a presumption in favour of restraint which it is up to the defendants to overcome. For this proposition he relies upon the decision of Mr Justice Millett who gave what I 33 might term the first decision in the various English proceedings.

The part which he appears to me to rely upon commences at the first

It reads as follows: paragraph on page 5 of that judgment.

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