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Over the last 15 years, English courts have developed the injunction contra mundum, one made against all the world and used primarily to prevent infringement of privacy and breaches of confidence. The order has attracted recent criticism because it is frequently sought by celebrities to suppress publicity about their private and family life. Such an order intersects a number of substantive areas of law, including: the developing tort of privacy; freedom of speech, the Internet and prior restraint; the open court principle; defamation; and the ability to enforce court orders across jurisdictional boundaries. This article addresses the difficulties of introducing such an injunction into Canadian common law and whether it is necessary.
Au cours des 15 dernières années, les tribunaux anglais ont mis au point l'injonction contra mundum, déposée contre le monde entier et utilisée principalement pour empêcher la violation de la vie privée et l'abus de confiance. L'ordonnance a suscité des critiques récentes, car elle est souvent utilisée par des célébrités pour supprimer la publicité sur leur vie privée et familiale. Une telle ordonnance recoupe un certain nombre de domaines importants du droit, notamment la création du délit d'atteinte à la vie privée, la liberté d'expression, Internet et la restriction préalable, le principe de l'audience publique, la diffamation, et la capacité de faire respecter les ordonnances du tribunal au-delà des limites juridictionnelles. Dans cet article, l'auteur traite des difficultés de l'introduction d'une telle injonction dans la common law canadienne et de la nécessité d'une telle injonction.
1. INTRODUCTION
In this digital age, any skeletons in the cupboard almost always emerge. Don't commit anything to a text or email that you wouldn't shout from the rooftops: there's no such thing as privacy any more.1
We may treat this as a self-evident truth, but there are enough people who will spend time and money attempting to prove that it isn't so. Along the path to dis prove the argument that there is no such thing as privacy anymore, one may come across the injunction contra mundum', an interlocutory order made, literally, against "all the world" to restrain the airing of one's dirty little secrets.2 Plug the search term contra mundum into Bailii and 47 hits will be returned. Plug the same terms into Canlii...