The most senior law lords in the UK will determine whether Bermuda’s media can report on a leaked Police dossier containing allegations about the Premier and other politicians — but their decision could be up to a year away.

The Court of Appeal yesterday agreed to an application from the Attorney General and Police Commissioner to have the Privy Council in London decide whether Chief Justice Richard Ground was right to rule that the freedom of the press to report the allegations outweighed concern about the confidentiality of the file.

Shadow Justice Minister John Barritt warned last night that the decision to take the case to the highest possible court for a British overseas territory could cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars — but legal consultant and Progressive Labour Party supporter Julian Hall claimed it was the only way to get a “pure legal decision”.

In the meantime, the Island’s media remains temporarily gagged from reporting on the Police file, which concerns an investigation into corruption at Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC). Saul Froomkin QC, representing The Royal Gazette and its sister paper the Mid-Ocean News, told the Court of Appeal yesterday morning that the Government’s appeal against Mr. Justice Ground’s decision could take between eight and 12 months to be heard.

He said the media would be prevented from publishing anything until then, despite winning two previous court hearings on the matter.

AG Sen. Philip Perinchief and Police Commissioner George Jackson first applied for an injunction against all media after the Mid-Ocean News published stories on June 1 containing details from the BHC file. ZBM television news broadcast extracts on May 23. Mr. Justice Ground refused the application on June 18 and the Court of Appeal upheld his decision on Monday.

Their judgement said: “We are unable to say that the learned Chief Justice wrongly exercised his discretion and we dismiss the appeal with costs.”

Yesterday, the Privy Council’s judicial committee — sitting in Downing Street, London at the same time as the Court of Appeal on the Island — ordered that a ban on all media from publishing further material from the BHC file remain in place.

Mr. Froomkin had earlier said that The Royal Gazette>and the Mid-Ocean News were no longer able or prepared to stick to a voluntary undertaking not to publish. “If they are going to be prevented from publishing in the public interest, they want some court to tell them that,” he said.

Lawyer Delroy Duncan, for the AG and Mr. Jackson, told the Court of Appeal that the issue of whether a permanent injunction was granted was of “major public importance”.

He said that appeal would be rendered pointless if the media was not barred from making further revelations in the meantime. The leaked dossier — said to run to thousands of pages — reportedly reveals that Premier Ewart Brown, former Premier Jennifer Smith, former Minister Renee Webb, construction boss Zane DeSilva and others were investigated by Police looking into allegations of corruption at BHC.

The court arguments which have gone in favour of the media in both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal have been between the need to protect confidential documents and the right of the media in democratic societies to report on serious allegations against public figures.

Mr. Hall said he expected the Privy Council to give far more weight to the rights of the people named in the dossier than had Mr. Justice Ground.

“He gave short shrift and paid no more than lip service to that,” said Mr. Hall. “I’m sure the Privy Council will find that curious.”

He added: ‘When you get to the Privy Council, that’s when you get pure legal decisions unaffected by race or politics. The higher up the chain you go the more pure, I think, becomes the legal decisions made. They know how to factor out completely political considerations. None of this is a criticism of any judge.”

Mr. Barritt said he was not surprised that the matter was going to the Privy Council or that the temporary ban remained in place. But he argued that the public had the right to know now what else was contained in the BHC file yet October was the earliest the Privy Council was likely to hear the matter.

“This is going to keep a lid on goodness knows what else,” he said. “I think the public’s right to know is one that’s contemporaneous rather than historical.”

Mr. Barritt added that an independent commission into the BHC case would have proved less costly than this legal route.

“It will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, particularly if the costs are awarded against Government, which has been the case so far,” he said. “The people of the country will have to decide whether or not this has been pursued in their interest.”

Dr. Brown has accused the Opposition of engineering the leak in a pre-election bid to destabilise his Government and has initiated libel action against the media over published extracts from the dossier.

The Police investigation into the source of the leak has seen three arrests but no charges. Two men were detained and released earlier this month. Auditor General Larry Dennis - the Government’s fiscal watchdog - was arrested and released after 24 hours in custody last week.

Bill Zuill, editor of The Royal Gazette, said: “We are pleased that the Court of Appeal accepted Saul Froomkin’s arguments that the Chief Justice exercised his discretion reasonably and correctly in making his initial decision.

“We naturally accept the decision of the Court of Appeal to allow the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Police leave to appeal to the Privy Council. In those circumstances, whilst unfortunate, it is understandable that the Privy Council decided to grant a stay of the Court of Appeal’s judgement pending the hearing of the further appeal before it.

“Having said that, the likely substantive effect of this may be to extend the ‘gag’ for at least three months and it goes without saying that we hope and will endeavour to appear before the Privy Council as soon as possible in the hope of bringing this process to an early close.”

He added that thI>Gazette and the Mid-Ocean had opted not to continue their voluntary undertaking for two reasons. “One was that we did not believe that the Court of Appeal had the jurisdiction to grant a stay - and the Court of Appeal agreed - and therefore it would have been wrong to give an undertaking when our fellow defendants would have been under no such obligation. “Secondly, as Mr. Froomkin noted, we have given a series of undertakings since this began and we were concerned that giving another could be open-ended and we thought it preferable to be subject to a formal order of the court.”

Neither Mr. Perinchief nor Mr. Jackson would comment yesterday.

ends

BHC leak case off to Privy Council