Barristers
Edward Garnier QC - Door Tenant
Email:
eg@onebrickcourt.com
Call: 1976
SPECIALISATION
- Defamation and malicious falsehood/trade libel in all media (eg internet, e-mail, print and broadcast media) for claimants and defendants, including related European Human Rights Law
- Breach of confidence, data protection and privacy law, including related Human Rights Law
- Contempt of Court
- Media reporting restrictions and cases involving access to un-broadcast material under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1994
- Passing Off
- Pre-publication advice to local and national newspapers, broadcasters and publishing houses
- Has acted for national, foreign and local press, broadcasters and publishing houses, for British and foreign corporate clients, British and foreign Government ministers and senior politicians, sports and entertainment stars, for privately funded and trade union-sponsored clients. He also accepts work under Conditional Fee Arrangements.
ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
Wellington College, Berkshire
Jesus College, Oxford 1971-74 Modern History, (BA 1974; MA 1976)
College of Law, London 1974-76
Called to the Bar by the Middle Temple July 1976
Pupillage 1976-77 with Richard Rampton at 1 Brick Court and 1977 at Chambers of Lewis Hawser QC, 1 Garden Court (general common law, family and crime)
Tenant, 1 Brick Court 1st January 1978
Visiting Parliamentary Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford (1996 – 1997)
Member of Parliament for Harborough, Leicestershire, since 1992
Member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee 1992-94
Parliamentary Private Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office 1994-1995
Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Attorney General 1995-97
Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1996-97
Shadow Minister, Lord Chancellor’s Department 1997-1999
Shadow Attorney General 1999-2001
Crown Court Recorder 1998
Bencher, Middle Temple 2001
Member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Study Group on Parliament and the Media - Recommendations for an Informed Democracy
Conclusions of a CPA Study Group on Parliament and the MediaHeld in partnership with the World Bank Institute andThe Parliament of Western Australia Perth, Western Australia, 17 — 21 February 2003
Shadow Home Affairs Minister 2005-2007
Shadow Minister for Justice 2007-2009
Shadow Attorney General 2009 - 2010
Solicitor General 2010 -
REPRESENTATIVE CASES OF INTEREST
Defamation
- Wood -v- West Midlands Police 2003 (qualified privilege; onward publication of police information)
- Mawdsley –v- Guardian Newspapers 2002 (application of S8 Defamation Act, summary relief)
- Williams -v- Mirror Group Newspapers 2002 (recovered substantial damages for an African-American female professional boxing judge falsely accused of corruptly scoring the Lennox Lewis/Evander Holyfield title fight in favour of her compatriot)
- Maneka Ghandi –v- Harper Collins 2001 (recovered substantial damages for Indian Government cabinet minister falsely implicated in a murder in a biography of her late mother-in-law, Indira Ghandi)
- Garfoot –v- Walker 2000 (recovered £400,000 for claimant falsely accused of rape and other sexual assaults on work colleague)
- Edwina Currie –v- Express Newpapers 2000 (recovered substantial damages for former MP and Government minister accused of being “The Vilest Woman in Britain” in an article published shortly after the 1997 general election)
- Patti Boulaye –v- Guardian Newspapers 1999 (recovered substantial damages for British-Nigerian singer who was a Conservative candidate for the Greater London Assembly falsely accused of being a supporter of South African apartheid)
- Telnikoff –v- Matusevitch (1992) 2AC 343; (1991) 1 QB 102 (requirements for fair comment defence)
- Sarah Keays –v- Murdoch Magazines (1991) 1 WLR 1184 (Court’s jurisdiction to decide question of defamatory meaning as preliminary issue; subsequently recovered £100,000 plus at trial for false allegation that Claimant had written a “kiss’n’tell” book about her life with Conservative cabinet minister Cecil Parkinson)
- Aldington –v- Tolstoy & Watts 1989 (appeared for 2nd Defendant in “War Criminal” action brought by Lord Aldington, former Conservative cabinet Minister)
Orme –v- Associated Newspapers 1979-1981 (appeared for Daily Mail led by Lord Rawlinson QC and Richard Rampton in 6 month jury trial – the longest ever civil jury trial – and in the Court of Appeal and House of Lords hearings in action brought by the ‘Moonies’)
Confidence
-
Cornelius –v de Taranto 2001 EMLR 329 (breach of confidence, medico-legal report)
Reporting restrictions
-
R –v- Beaconsfield Magistrates ex parte Westminster Press - 28th June 1994 Times Law Reports
PUBLICATIONS
Contributor: Halsbury’s Laws of England, 4th Edn. Vol.45
Telecommunications & Broadcasting Law
Bearing the Standard (jointly 1991)
Facing the Future (jointly 1993)
Articles on defamation, media law, human rights, jury trial and other legal and related public policy issues published in The Times, The Independent and the legal press (eg: The Lawyer, Counsel Magazine, Solicitors’ Journal) plus appearances on television and radio (eg: BBC Radio 4’s Law in Action, The World at One and The World Tonight, BBC 2’s Newsnight). See also Hansard for House of Common speeches on many legal issues.
His cases have also been discussed in Media Lawyer.
Appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme "The Commission: The Judges" on 15th October 2003
INTERESTS
Music, cricket, shooting, travel & history