Case studies 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 The lawyers of the killers of Jamie Bulger asked the killers Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, to have their identify protected. This was the first case in UK which tried to push for a privacy law to protect the media from publishing of their assumed names, whereabouts, photographs and descriptions of their appearances. 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 anomalous. She first lost her case against the paper who won in favour of the public interest, then in 2004, she had previous judgment over turned and she won based on a breach of confidentiality, like Micheal and Catherine Zeta Jones did not win on privacy, but again on a breach on confidentiality.

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

Catherine Zita Jones Micheal Douglas 2003: Catherine Zita 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 had falsely accused him of taking part in a "sick Nazi orgy". Max Mosley The newspaper believed that publishing the pictures was in the public interest, but the judge rules 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 video extracts on the News of the World website – all of this on a massive scale. "In the face of Max Mosley, all the newspapers lost their bottle and settled 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. The court ruled again

Judge rules in favour public interest John Terry failed to use an injunction to stop a newspaper publishing the married father of two had an affair with a former team- mate’s girlfriend. An injunction is viewed as a backdoor privacy law. 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, which is viewed as a backdoor privacy law. The judge in the case Mr Justice Tugendhat said that freedom of expression outweighed Terry’s right to suppress the reporting of his affair, which will cast doubt on his England captaincy and could affect his multi-million- pound sponsorship deals with Samsung, Umbro and Nationwide “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 country’s leading media lawyers.

Why Terry’s 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 over taken by privacy law. Terry case was important because it changed the balance back to the newspapers and press freedom. This can be seen with an excelation 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 is winning the debate, however the news of the world has just issued a statement to apologise about the phone hacking and have set up a 20million compensation fund for celebrity victims of this scandal. This controversy shows that the press are acting beyond their reach In 2009, the PCC investigated the News of the world and found there was no evidence to suggest phone hacking. Interestingly it is believed that

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 o f the report, because they see it as editors investigatind 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

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 this means the PCC are not able to fulfil their objective to regulate and deal with complaints on the general publics.

Problems with PCC being ineffectual Its seen as unaccountable because run by editors this was one criticism raised by an MP The fact that celebrities are taking their complaints to the court rather than the PCC, which suggests there are problems with the system.

Today-Cameron Uneasy about a privacy law. David Cameron hinted yesterday 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 super- injunctions 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.