examples of orders granted by courts restraining conduct by the world at large. Such orders may be made under common law powers or may have a statutory basis. They generally prohibit the publication of information about the proceedings in which they are made (eg as to the identity of a witness). A person will commit a contempt of court if, knowing of the order, he frustrates its purpose by publishing the information in question: see, for example, In re F (orse A) (A Minor) (Publication of Information) [1977] Fam 58 and Attorney General v Leveller Magazine Ltd [1979] AC 440.
(v) Embargoes on draft judgments
35. It is the practice of some courts to circulate copies of their draft judgments to the parties’ legal representatives, subject to a prohibition on further, unauthorised, disclosure. The order therefore applies directly to non-parties to the proceedings: see, for example, Attorney General v Crosland [2021] UKSC 15; [2021] 4 WLR 103 and [2021] UKSC 58; [2022] 1 WLR 367. Like reporting restrictions, such orders are not equitable injunctions, but they are relevant as further examples of orders directed against non-parties.
(vi) The effect of injunctions on non-parties
36. We have focused thus far on the question whether an injunction can be granted against a non-party. As we shall explain, it is also relevant to consider the effect which injunctions against parties can have upon non-parties.
37. If non-parties are not enjoined by the order, it follows that they are not bound to obey it. They can nevertheless be held in contempt of court if they knowingly act in the manner prohibited by the injunction, even if they have not aided or abetted any breach by the defendant. As it was put by Lord Oliver of Aylmerton in Attorney General v Times Newspapers Ltd [1992] 1 AC 191, 223, there is contempt where a non-party “frustrates, thwarts, or subverts the purpose of the court’s order and thereby interferes with the due administration of justice in the particular action” (emphasis in original). 38. One of the arguments advanced before the House of Lords in Attorney General v Times Newspapers Ltd was that to invoke the jurisdiction in contempt against a person who was neither a party nor an aider or abettor of a breach of the order by the defendant, but who had done what the defendant in the action was forbidden by the order to do was, in effect, to make the order operate in rem or contra mundum. That, it was argued, was a purpose which the court could not legitimately achieve, since its orders were only properly made inter partes.
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