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Hello from the Supreme Court (confusingly, today only, in the Lord Chief Justice's court at the Royal Courts of Justice.) A qualified barrister Tim Crosland might be jailed today for disclosing a Supreme Court judgment on Heathrow's expansion, before the embargo was lifted.
This is a legal first for the Supreme Court - considering a Contempt of Court case for breaking one of the fundamental rules of justice: no one is allowed to disclose a judgment before the court is ready to release it.
Background: Last December Tim Crosland was part of challenge to government's policy to allow Heathrow to expand while trying to cap emissions. Environmentalists lost in the Supreme Court on complex legal grounds. Mr Crosland disclosed the result the day before it was published.
Tim Crosland is a long-qualified barrister and now a director of an environmental group, Plan B Earth, which brings legal actions as part of its campaign to save the planet.
That's a major legal no-no. The Supreme Court often circulates its judgments **confidentially** to the parties before it is released so that errors can be tidied up and those involved can consider how they will respond.
No one has ever breached that embargo at the Supreme Court - and it is vanishingly rare to hear of it happening in other courts. Why? Because a) it is against the law and b) it will destroy the career of the lawyer who leaks it.
Today Tim Crosland is potentially fighting for his freedom, saying he was justified in disclosing the Supreme Court's judgment because in his view it was wrong. Here are some of the submissions Mr Crosland is making: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pK-MsKWXmUvi8BGHsVwEiT9Z5T5SgRduybMhz4Z-0ec/edit
Penalty if it goes against Mr Crosland? Up to two years in jail, or a fine, or both. Which is why we're in the Royal Courts of Justice: It's got cells.
