{"id":45134,"date":"2013-03-21T13:03:37","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T13:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=45134"},"modified":"2017-01-09T16:37:44","modified_gmt":"2017-01-09T16:37:44","slug":"index-responds-to-the-royal-charter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=45134","title":{"rendered":"Index responds to the Royal Charter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In response to this week’s deal on press regulation, Index on Censorship chief executive Kirsty Hughes said:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIndex is against the introduction of a Royal Charter that determines the details of establishing a press regulator in the UK \u2014 the involvement of politicians undermines the fundamental principle that the press holds politicians to account. Politicians have now stepped in as ringmaster and our democracy is tarnished as a result.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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She also said:<\/p>\n

“The fact that this requirement is now being applied to all Royal Charters is a rushed and fudged attempt to pretend this is not just a press law; it resembles precisely the kind of political manoeuvring we see in Hungary today \u2013 where the government is amending its own constitution through a parliamentary vote undermining key principles of their democracy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

In spite of David Cameron\u2019s claims, there can be no doubt that what has been established is statutory underpinning of the press regulator. This introduces a layer of political control that is extremely undesirable. On this sad day, Britain has abandoned a democratic principle.<\/p>\n

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But beyond that, the Royal Charter\u2019s loose definition of a \u2018relevant publisher\u2019 as a \u2018website containing news-related material\u2019 means blogs could be regulated under this new law as well. This will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on everyday people\u2019s web use.<\/p>\n

Bloggers could find themselves subject to exemplary damages in court, due to the fact that they were not part of a regulator that was not intended for them in the first place. This mess of legislation has been thrown together with alarming haste: there\u2019s little doubt we\u2019ll repent for a while to come.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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In addition to issues over damages, there have been further problems raised about apologies. Index’s News Editor Padraig Reidy said:<\/p>\n

“There are also concerns about the proposed regulator\u2019s power to \u201cdirect\u201d the placement of apologies.<\/p>\n

Again, this is \u201cLeveson compliant\u201d \u2014 the Lord Justice himself stated \u201cThe power to direct the nature, extent and placement of apologies should lie with the Board\u201d.<\/p>\n

This is also really problematic, suggesting as it does that a Quango can determine what is and isn\u2019t published in newspapers, and where. This may seem angel-on-pinhead stuff, but there is a world of difference between \u201cdirect\u201d and \u201crequire\u201d. While apologies may be desirable, it\u2019s simply not safe to give an external power with state underpinning the power to tell editors what to put in papers. Forced publication is a sinister perversion of free expression, and has no place in the British press or anywhere else.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Read our analysis of the Leveson Inquiry report’s recommendations here<\/a>.<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Royal Charter has raised grave concerns over damages and chilling effect on web users<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":44466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[581,21],"tags":[4456,4891,5356],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45134"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47271,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45134\/revisions\/47271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}