Users of Twitter appear to have played a major role in the overturning of a historically unprecedented attempt to silence the press. A British court has now overturned its decision to ban a national newspaper from reporting a question scheduled to be asked in the country’s parliament.

The story began yesterday when a court issued a bizarre injunction ordering The Guardian to not report on the fact that a politician was schedule to ask a question in Parliament this week. The injunction barred the newspaper from saying who the politician was or what the question was about; the only information it could reveal was which law firm had acted in the case, namely Carter-Ruck.

This is despite the fact that all scheduled questions are a matter of public record and that repeated legal cases going back to 1688 have repeatedly confirmed the right of the media to report goings on in Parliament.

Other newspapers and broadcasters kept quiet about the case thanks to a general policy of following even those injunctions which apply to a single outlet. However, the news of the gagging quickly spread through Twitter, prompting several blog sites to investigate. Given the law firm involved, they soon figured out that the question was almost certainly the following:

Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

Such stories were also picked up by Twitter users, with “Trafigura” becoming the number one trending topic (the most mentioned term) on the site. That led to widespread interest in Trafigura and their alleged activities.

The Guardian was today scheduled to make an appeal about the injunction. However, shortly before the hearing Carter-Ruck withdrew its request to keep the information secret, apparently having realized that the injunction had become pointless.

The irony of the situation is that the actions of Trafigura and Carter-Ruck have completely backfired. It appears that before this week, even most well-read, news-savvy people were unaware of Trafigura. Thanks to the fallout of the gagging order, their environmental record has now come to many people’s attention in a way that would never have happened if the subject had simply being discussed in Parliament.