This is truly astonishing. A British MP put down a question to raise in the house. It was on the order paper. But a newspaper was not allowed to reveal who the MP was, what the question was, or that it was by court order. More astonishingly, the court order itself was a secret.

Hard-won rights to reporting and free speech, especially the right to report Parliament, were imperilled, in a country where these rights had been established.

Preserving press freedom, even long-established rights to report parliamentary proceedings, is a continual struggle and not just from petty despots of the “third world”.

In the 1970s, the revered Lord Denning, master of the rolls, had ruled that

But petty despots of Big Biz are everywhere, and the combination of big business, big-money corporate lawyers, and an establishment beholden to corporate interests, can be lethal.

Dutch team cleaning up toxic waste in Ivory Coast. Guardian/APF photo

Yesterday, the Guardian won its battle an hour before going to court when the lawyers for oil traders Trafigura, alleged to have dumped toxic waste in Africa, withdrew the gag. By then it was all over the Internet, via Twitter, and several bloggers had dug up the MP’s question from the order paper and published it. Other MPs had said they would raise the matter in the Commons.

The Guardian was not allowed to state:

And the Guardian’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, lamented that:

Sadly Malaysian rights to reporting are also in an abysmal state, and parliament reporting rights were curtailed by the Sedition Act which withdraws absolute privilege and leaves MPs open to prosecution for what was said, and the press for reporting it.

‣ Guardian gagged from reporting parliament
‣ Gag on Guardian lifted
How the Guardian reported the Trafigura dumping story
‣ Papers prove Trafigura ship dumped toxic waste in Ivory Coast