A HIGH Court judge will hear an application tomorrow from a student aimed at preventing six newspapers identifying him in reports about injunctions obtained by him over an internet video clip which, he alleges, defamed him.
It was claimed yesterday by lawyers for Facebook and the Sunday Timesthat the student was effectively seeking the sort of "super-injunction" secured in England by some well-known persons prohibiting publication of their identities in court cases.
The student last week obtained temporary injunctions against a number of internet companies, including Facebook and Google, prohibiting the rebroadcasting or republishing of material which, the student claims, defamed him by alleging he was guilty of taxi fare evasion.
Earlier this week the injunctions were continued until January 27th.
The student claims he was not even in the country at the time of the alleged incident.
Yesterday, he applied for further orders prohibiting six national newspapers identifying him in relation to the court proceedings or publishing anything defamatory of him.
The orders were sought against Independent Newspapers, The Irish Times, the Examiner, the Starand the Sunday Times.
Lawyers for the student argued that the injunction prohibits third parties with knowledge of it from publishing material and contended that prohibition applied to newspapers.
Reports of the court case could be carried once the student was not identified, it was argued.
Lawyers for some of the newspapers and Facebook disputed that interpretation of the order and submitted there was no reporting restrictions imposed when the case was before the court.
Mr Justice Michael Peart said he would hear the application tomorrow.
The student’s counsel, Pauline Walley, said she was asking that the newspapers not publish his identity pending a ruling on her application.
Rossa Fanning, for Facebook, said he was in court for the previous hearings of the matter and there had clearly been no application for what was effectively a “super injunction”.
If there had been such an application, he had no doubt it would fail, counsel said.
“The genie or smoke was out of the bottle and what purpose this application serves, I do not know,” he added.
Ms Walley said she objected to Mr Fanning attempting to give evidence.
Counsel said she was not seeking a super-injunction and had never sought to prevent publication about the court proceedings but was objecting to the identification of her client by name, particularly by the Evening Herald which gave more information than the other papers.
They had breached the injunction both in its terms as well as in its spirit, she said.
Simon McAleese, solicitor for Independent Newspapers (Ireland) Ltd, publishers of the Heraldand the Independent, and Shane English, for the Starand Examiner, said they would not be giving such an undertaking.
Andrew O'Rorke, solicitor for The Irish Times, supporting Mr Fanning's argument, said his client should no longer be in the case because, when it was contacted on Wednesday morning by the student's lawyer, it had changed the material in the online and epaper editions.
This was done without prejudice to the rights of The Irish Times, he said. Garrett Simons SC, for the Sunday Times, said a super-injunction was being sought against his client because, while there was no allegation they had published anything to date, they intended to publish on Sunday.
There was no basis for the application, counsel argued.