Got secrets you want to keep? Get a hyper-injunction

First there was the super-injunction. Now there's the double-secret hyper-injunction. What on earth next?
An American judge's gavel
The judge's word is final. Photograph: Alamy

First we had the injunction, a court order aimed at stopping someone doing something, such as making certain information public – the identities of two people having an affair, let's say, when one of them is a famous footballer.

Then along came the so-called super-injunction, a gag order so constraining it forbids mention of itself – the press is not allowed to reveal that such an injunction has been issued, for fear the public might get the idea that the person or institution seeking the injunction has something to hide.

The existence of a super-injunction generally only comes to light either when it is lifted or when it is mentioned in the House of Commons, where parliamentary privilege protects MPs from court proceedings. This happened earlier in the month, when Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming revealed that the former banker Sir Fred Goodwin had taken out an injunction that prevented him being identified as a banker, among other undisclosable things. We still don't know much, but it's too much for Goodwin's liking.

Behold, then, a new innovation: what Hemming calls the hyper-injunction. This double-secret form of super-injunction, unveiled only recently by the MP, specifically bars a person from discussing something with "members of Parliament, journalists and lawyers", except for his own defence lawyers.

Its effectiveness is clearly demonstrated by the fact that it's not new at all: the hyper-injunction Hemmings referred to – concerning allegations to do with ships' drinking water tanks being coated with toxic paint – dated from 2006, and we're only just hearing about it. We have no idea how much of this legal dark matter currently exists.

There is, of course, an obvious next step: the meta-injunction. This is a form of legal suppression so all-injuncting that it is illegal for me to tell you that there is such a thing. I have only just coined the term, and already I am risking jail. Whatever you do, don't call my lawyer.