EVENING STANDARD: Saudi bankers and Russian oligarchs love London, and not only for its chichi boutiques. English judges provide them with a unique and de-luxe service: the right to silence detractors from all corners of the globe.
Their behaviour is causing an international scandal but you would never guess it from the wretched response to the Daily Mail editor-in-chief's criticisms of Mr Justice Eady. The supposedly liberal-minded Lord Falconer, the former Labour Lord Chancellor, and Lord Lester, who once championed human rights, have burbled their defences of Eady, apparently unaware that all over the world honest people fear him.
I've been on the fringes of campaigns for freedom of expression for years, and could provide dozens of examples. But let us begin with the case that has made English law a laughing stock.
One of Barack Obama's first acts as president will be to sign into law the Libel Tourism Bill, which is sailing through the US Congress. America is an ally whose law has its roots in England but because of Eady it will not recognise the judgments of English courts.
Eady allowed the billionaire Saudi banker Khalid bin Mahfouz to sue Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American author. Ms Ehrenfeld had not published or promoted her book on the funding of terrorism in England. The sheikh had paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines after the collapse of the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International.
Eady shrugged and ordered that all copies of Ehrenfeld's book should nevertheless be pulped. >>> Nick Cohen | November 12, 2008
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