Attorney General V Blake House of Lords

Attorney General v Blake, [2001] 1 A.C. 268 (2000)
© 2023 Thomson Reuters.
6
sanctions, from flagrantly disrespecting and flouting
the criminal law.
The exercise of the jurisdiction in the present case was
not excluded by the Criminal Justice Act 1988 . That
Act merely confirmed what was a clear public policy
in relation to the defendant's offences as a spy and a
prison-breaker and under the Official Secrets Acts.
The injunction did not interfere with the defendant's
right to freedom of expression under article 10 of
the Human Rights Convention. The freezing of the
royalties from the book did not prevent the defendant
from holding opinions or imparting information and
ideas. The defendant has already been paid £60,000
in royalties which cannot be recovered from him. In
any event, in joining the Secret Intelligence Service
the defendant assumed, as a term of his employment,
an obligation not to disclose any information which
came to him in his official capacity. That is clear from
the Official Secrets Act 1911 and the undertaking he
signed in 1944. An individual who has contracted out
of his right to freedom of expression cannot rely on
article 10 to complain of interference with that right.
If there was interference with the defendant's right
under article 10, that interference was lawful because
(1) it was prescribed in a national law which 
*274
was
accessible to the public and the application of which
to conduct such as the defendant's was sufficiently
foreseeable and (2) it was necessary in a democratic
society for the prevention of crime and disorder and/or
the protection of morals (ie, there was a pressing social
need for it) and it was proportionate to the legitimate
aim of ensuring that the defendant was not free to profit
from his crime.
Section 1(1) of the 1989 Act is not incompatible with
article 10, nor is it disproportionate in its application.
In a prosecution under section 1(1) it would be difficult
to prove damage without compounding the damage
created by the original disclosure. If there were a
requirement to prove damage the Crown would be
faced with the invidious choice between prosecuting
and jeopardising an operation or the lives of informers
and not prosecuting and allowing the member or
former member to escape punishment. It is legitimate
in terms of article 10 for the legislature to choose
a formulation of an offence which gives national
security actual and effective protection rather than
theoretical and illusory protection. Section 1(1) only
forbids disclosure without lawful authority so that the
authorities can relax the application of section 1(1) in
appropriate cases.
As a general rule the measure of damages for breach
of contract is compensatory rather than restitutionary,
so that the claimant will have his damages assessed by
reference to the loss sustained, not to the profit made
by the defendant as a result of his wrongful act.
However, compensatory damages will be inadequate
in circumstances where the innocent party's objective
in entering into the contract cannot be achieved unless
it is performed. In those circumstances restitutionary
damages should be awarded to protect the interests
which the innocent party bargained for. Justification
for such damages is strongest where profits are
obtained by the contract-breaker directly as a result of
his having done the very thing which he contracted not
to do. The contract-breaker should then be stripped of
his profits. [Reference was made to Snepp v United
States (1980) 444 US 507 ; Tito v Waddell (No 2)
[1977] Ch 106 ; Lake v Bayliss [1974] 1 WLR 1073
and British Motor Trade Association v Gilbert [1951]
2 All ER 641 .]
Commercial uncertainty cannot justify a denial of
restitutionary damages in cases which fall within a
clear category. On the contrary, explicit recognition
of that category, and the clear articulation of the
criteria according to which cases fall within it, could
only improve commercial certainty, in the light of
the pressure which courts feel to award what are
in reality restitutionary damages while characterising
them, implausibly, as compensatory.
The victim of a criminal act will be entitled to a
restitutionary remedy where the benefit gained by the
criminal, for example the royalties of a book, is the

---