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Further memorandum submitted by Terence Ewing
I would like to add some further information and observations.
Full details of the Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Press Complaints Commission Company No. 02538908 may be obtained from Companies House.
In addition, full details of the Memorandum and Articles of Association of Press Bof (Press Standards Board of Finance Ltd.) Company No. 02554323 may also be obtained from Companies House.
I would also refer to the following additional matters.
1. The Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission is appointed by the news industry itself, and I understand that Press Bof may also remove him or any other Committee member.
2. The Chairman is also chair of the appointments Commission for the Press Complaints Commission, which appoints the members of the Commission.
3. As an adjudicating body, neither the editors who sit on the adjudications or any of the lay members are legally qualified.
4. It isn't clear what legal assistance they have from the secretarial back up, although the Commission does have solicitors.
5. It is understood that the solicitors don't advise the members of the Commission in respect of adjudications, and unlike lay Justices in the Magistrates' Court the Commission are therefore not advised by someone with legal qualifications as with the case of Clerks to Justices.
6. It must follow that any adjudication say in respect of privacy issues, which as members of the current Parliamentary Committee will know, has given rise to a large amount of case law, including a decision in the House of Lords relating to the Naomi Campbell case, will not have had recourse to professional legal assistance on the interpretation and application of the relevant case law.
7. As breaches of privacy is one of the main complaints to the Commission and there are provisions in its Code of Conduct concerning it, this must therefore raise issues as to the competence of the current Commission to seek to determine and adjudicate on such issues.
April 2009 |