The right to privacy and freedom of the press: where do we draw the line now?
THE right to individual privacy and the right to freedom of expression – always a delicate balance – were set at odds when they were both enshrined in the Human Rights Act which was brought in by Tony Blair’s Labour Government in 1998.
The legislation, which came into force in October 2000, aimed to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.
Under Article 8, the Human Rights Act states that everyone has the right to respect for their private and family life, their home and their correspondence.
But the law also guarantees everyone’s right to freedom of expression, which allows them to hold opinions and receive and impart information and ideas without interference.
Ever since the law was introduced, judges have been asked to rule on cases where the two competing principles have appeared to clash.
The judgments in each of these legal challenges have helped form case law which has slowly tipped the balance in favour of a person’s right to privacy against the competing interests of a free press.
One of the first cases that came before the UK courts in this issue involved the footballer Garry Flitcroft.
After being accused of having an affair, Flitcroft took out a court injunction, banning the media from revealing the details of the relationship.
Following a long legal battle in 2002, Flitcroft was named by the newspapers, after three Appeal Court judges said the original ruling had been an “unjustified interference with the freedom of the press”.
Around the same time, a contrasting result was reached in the case of Naomi Campbell, the supermodel, who claimed the Daily Mirror breached her privacy in publishing pictures of her leaving a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.
The judge said details of her therapy were sensitive personal data and publishing then had been an unwarranted intrusion into her right to privacy.
In 2006, the Prince of Wales won a case against The Mail on Sunday after it published extracts of a dispatch he had written on a flight back from Hong Kong. He gained an injunction, based on a breach of privacy, to prevent the publication of any other extracts.
Two years later, one of the most significant privacy versus freedom of expression cases took place when the Formula One racing boss Max Mosley successfully sued the News of the World for publishing details of a sadomasochistic sex orgy he had indulged in that allegedly had a Nazi theme. The judge found in Mosley’s favour after ruling there was no evidence of a Nazi theme.
Last night, leading legal experts warned that the latest case risked tipping the balance in favour of privacy over freedom of expression with far reaching implications for a free press.
Heather Rogers QC, a leading media lawyer, said: “This judgment could have a significant impact on media reporting. Privacy rights have been developing since the Human Rights Act but it has now emerged as a further push towards shutting things out of the public domain. It is an advance in privacy rights and it means more privacy and less openness.”
Dr Paul Wragg, associate professor of media law at the University of Leeds, said: “This could have a chilling effect on the way the press operates, which does not serve the public interest.”