Case Note on Attorney General V Jonathan Cape

Case note: Attorney General v Jonathan Cape Ltd

I. Introduction

In this case, Attorney General v Jonathan Cape Ltd, the plaintiff was the Attorney General. The defendants were the publishers and the literary executors of the Cabinet Minister, Richard Crossman, that published the first extracts of Crossman’s book, ‘The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister’. The legal issue was whether the constitutional conventions of collective responsibility and confidentiality could be enforced by court, thereby stopping the publishing of the Diaries.

The facts of the case were that during the years 1964-1970 Crossman (Cabinet Minister) kept a diary with an intention to publish it, where he recorded discussions of the Cabinet and political events, and of which his Cabinet colleagues knew of. After his death in 1974, the first volume of ‘The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister’ covering the years 1964-66 was sent for approval to the Secretary of the Cabinet. However, the Secretary rejected its publication on the ground that it was against public interest, as the doctrine of collective responsibility would be breached. Nevertheless, in July 1975 the first extracts from the book were published in ‘Sunday Times’ without the Secretary’s consent. Subsequently, the Attorney General applied for two injunctions to prevent the publication of the diaries: one against the literary executors and publishers of the book and another against the ‘Sunday Times’.

The Attorney General’s arguments were based on the convention of collective responsibility in which the Cabinet Ministers are meant to publicly support all decisions of the Cabinet, regardless of their private opinions. This extends to the doctrine of confidentiality, by which it would be in the public interest to keep Cabinet discussions “confidential and protected from unauthorized disclosure”. The Attorney General argued that the contents of the diaries were confidential and hence the court had the power to stop their publication if...