To commemorate its 200th birthday, the Guardian has selected 200 of its most powerful pieces of journalism produced over the past two centuries. Each day, a new category and its memorable articles are unveiled.

We are thrilled that multiple Bindmans cases have already been featured in this campaign, including the Spy Cops scandal, the Cambridge Analytica files, and the Edward Snowden revelations. 

From 2013 – 2016, Bindmans Partner, Kate Goold, represented David Miranda, who was transporting the Edward Snowden materials to his partner, Glenn Greenwald a Guardian journalist, in order for him to publish the Edward Snowden revelations. David was detained at Heathrow airport under terrorism powers. 

Speaking about the case, Kate said:

David Miranda, the partner of the Guardian journalist, Glenn Greenwald, who had published the Ed Snowden revelations, was detained at Heathrow airport under terrorism powers when he was in transit from Berlin to Brazil while in possession of the top secret GCHQ material he obtained from Ed Snowden.

We challenged his detention, questioning and the seizure of his journalistic material under such dracononian powers and argued that the police and security services had acted outside their legal authority and had wrongly relied on terrorism powers to seize the material.

The Court of Appeal (Civil Division) agreed with our concerns that terrorism powers had been relied on to seize journalistic material, thus circumventing the protections and judicial safeguards contained within the criminal law. The Court of Appeal held that protections for journalists should be contained within Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act and a new protocol was introduced as a result. The court recognised the importance of a free press in a democracy and the safeguards that should apply to journalists.

David Miranda was represented by Kate Goold and John Halford of Bindmans LLP, and the case was funded by the Guardian and First Look Media.

Congratulations to the Guardian on a very successful first 200 years.