The newspaper and magazine industry has formally lodged an appeal after it was refused a judicial review of the privy council’s decision to reject its application for a royal charter to oversee press regulation.
The publishers, which had their request denied by Lord Justice Richards and Mr Justice Sales last week, say they are confident the appeal will work.
The industry’s trade associations, through the Press Standards Board of Finance, applied on October 30 for an injunction to prevent that afternoon’s meeting of the privy council sealing the government’s rival royal charter pending hearing of the industry’s case for judicial review.
“The imposition by the privy council of a royal charter on our industry raises hugely significant questions about a free press, a free society and the quality of our democracy,” said Lord Black of Brentwood, chairman of the Press Standards Board of Finance.
“Quite apart from the threat to press freedom in the UK, it will have terrible reverberations across the Commonwealth and the developing world. The stakes are extremely high.
“We do not believe that a hastily convened hearing for an emergency injunction application is an appropriate venue for giving proper consideration to these vital issues. We are confident our appeal will succeed.”
Earlier this week, the culture secretary Maria Miller said the Independent Press Standards Organisation, the newspaper industry’s own set of plans for independent self-regulation, will be given a chance to work without the new royal charter.
Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Miller said that the royal charter, which was drafted by the three main political parties with lobby group Hacked Off and approved by the Queen last week, could allow Ipso to function.
More controversially, if the new independent regulator was set up properly, it could even make the new royal charter redundant, Miller said. However, the minister confirmed she would encourage newspapers to let their regulator be governed by the royal charter as motivation to keep statutory regulation at bay.
“The body they’re setting up is for them to set up,” Miller said. “Self-regulation has to be determined by the industry […] the only role of the government in this was to oversee the traffic of the royal charter being put in place, which is a set of principles that will guide that.”
