Case studies

Privacy

Privacy
Privacy: Is an EU law Article 8 of human right which says every individual has right to a private life. It came into force in the UK in 2000, and overrides British law. UK: Public interest

Timeline of famous cases and Privacy

In 2001, just after the human rights act was introduced in 2000, the lawyers of the killers of Jamie Bulger asked that the killers, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, to have their identify protected. The first case in the UK which tried to push for a privacy law to protect the media from publishing this personal information. The Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, president of the High Court Family Division rules under Article 2 Right For Life.

2004
Naomi Campbell tried to sue the Mirror for publishing pictures of her leaving narcotics anonymous. She first lost her case against the paper who won in favour of the public interest. In 2004, she had previous judgment over turned and she won based on a breach of confidentiality.

 Naomis case is important as it hinted at a change in the law, from where there was once no privacy law. This case hinted that the UK, unlike other countries who have a history of privacy was now moving in that direction.

Catherine Zeta Jones Michael Douglas

2003: Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas try and sue Hello for publishing pictures of their wedding day. The judge did not rule in favour of privacy, but in favour of breach of confidentiality, as they had already signed a contract with OK magazine, so when hello published these pictures they were acting unlawfully and the contract was not with Hello.

Privacy or public interest.

In 2008, Formula one boss Max Mosley today won 60,000 in his privacy action against the News of the World after the Sunday tabloid falsely accused him of taking part in a "sick Nazi orgy". The newspaper believed that publishing the pictures was in the public interest, but the judge ruled in favour of privacy

The Judge found in favour of Mosley and said: "But there was no public interest or other justification for the clandestine recording, for the publication of the resulting information and still photographs, or for the placing of the In the face of Max Mosley, all the video extracts on the News of the World newspapers lost their bottle and settled website all of this on a massive scale. everything because they recognised that there was a change in law," said Mark Stephens, a media lawyer.

Ashley Cole
Ashley Cole tried to use the same defence as Max Mosley when he said that his private life had been intruded when the Daily Mirror reported he had been cheating on his wife.

Judge rules in favour public interest

John Terry tried but failed to use an injunction to stop a newspaper publishing the married father of two had an affair with a former teammates girlfriend. What is an Injunction?
An injunction is viewed as a backdoor privacy law..

This judgment is very, very important it is a landmark decision. It sets a precedent which should prevent unnecessary restraint on cases which are in the public interest, said Lord Lester QC, one of the countrys leading media lawyers.

This is because unlike Moseley where the pictures were published, an injunction happens before the paper goes to print. This was the first case since Moseley which went in the favour of public interest rather than an injunction.

The judge in the case Mr Justice Tugendhat said that freedom of expression outweighed Terrys right to suppress the reporting of his affair, which will cast doubt on his England captaincy and could affect his multi-millionpound sponsorship deals with Samsung, Umbro and Nationwide

Why Terrys case was important

Before John Terry, celebrities since Max Moseley were specifically winning their cases based on privacy law. This meant newspapers were scared that if they published something they could be sued, and that their public interest defence was being overtaken by privacy law. Terrys case was important because it shifted some of the balance back to the newspapers and press freedom. This can be seen with an escalation of stories about Vernon Kay and Ashley Cole after Terry lost his case.

News of the world phone hacking 2011

Public interest and press freedom was winning the debate. However the News Of The World issued a statement to apologise about the phone hacking and set up a 20 million compensation fund for celebrity victims of this scandal. This controversy showed that the press were acting beyond their reach In 2009, the PCC investigated the News of the world and found there was no evidence to suggest phone hacking.

PCC phone hacking

The guardian newspaper published in 2009, it believed phone hacking was widespread in the industry, and after the PCC report into this which found no evidence, many were critical of the report, because they see it as editors investigating themselves. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger rubbished the findings saying they were "worse than pointless" and called for the powers of the "weak" regulator to be enhanced to establish some form of investigatory mechanism We all know where this is going

Super injunctions
Celebrities are now using super injunctions to stop the press even printing. This means that they do not have to claim after the event to the PCC, they instead go to court to stop the paper from printing the story. If super injunctions continue being sought, this means the PCC are unable to fulfil their objective to regulate and deal with complaints on the general publics.

Problems with PCC being ineffectual

It is seen as unaccountable because it is run by editors.
This was one criticism raised by an MP

If celebrities are taking their complaints about the press through the court system rather than the PCC, this implies a fault or ineffectiveness in the regulatory system.

Today-Cameron Uneasy about a privacy law.

David Cameron hinted that Parliament may step in and take over the creation of privacy laws from judges. He said Parliament's failure to act has meant judges have used the European Convention on Human Rights to build up privacy law. His comments come after a number of celebrities used injunctions and superinjunctions to prevent details of their private lives being published. Asked for his views while he was campaigning in Luton for the local elections, Mr Cameron said: "What's happening here is that the judges are using the European Convention on Human Rights to deliver a sort of privacy law without Parliament saying so. The unspoken attitude of ministers has been that they want a law that will curb tabloid intrusion into private lives, but do not want to be seen to be the ones bringing it in, in case the public thinks they are trying to protect themselves.