19/09/2019
HCMP2801/2015 THE UNIVERSITY
87.
OF HONG KONG v. HONG
KONG
COMMERCIAL
BROADCASTING
CO LTD AND ANOTHER
In any event, in the circumstances of this case, the allegation that there
was some wrongdoing in the majority decision of the Council is not one that
I can summarily accept and find to be established in the setting of the present
application.
Take for example the allegation that what certain members of
the Council said was libellous: even if there were prima facie defamatory
statements
made,
there would
still be questions
as to whether
qualified
privilege attached to the communication and if so whether there was malice
that defeated the privilege.
Such allegations of wrongdoing or misbehaviour
are matters that depend on evidence on which the University and Council,
including
individual
opportunity
to
interlocutory
Council
contest.
stage
members
These
perhaps
and
explain
concerned,
other
Powell
must
difficulties
J’s
be
that
observation
Banking Corporation v John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd (1991)
afforded
an
pervade
the
in
Westpac
19 IPR 513,
525-526 that the balancing between the competing public interests is an
exercise which
“can rarely, if at all, be satisfactorily
carried out at an
interlocutory stage of proceedings, and on less than complete information”.
88.
On the materials available at present, the University has an arguable
claim that the public interest in upholding the confidentiality of the meetings
of the Council should prevail.
On the assumption that the University will
succeed at trial, the effect of discharging the interlocutory injunction now
will be to deprive
the University,
without
a trial, of its rights
and
all
opportunity of successfully obtaining final relief.
89. On the other hand, on the assumption that the University will fail at trial,
the effect of continuing the interim injunction until trial will only be to
postpone, not to prevent, the rightful disclosure by the Unknown Person of
the information in question.
https: //legalref.judiciary.hk/Irs/common/ju/ju_frame.jsp? DIS=101619&currpage=T
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