Horizontal Rights, the Human Rights Act and Privacy: Lessons from the Commonwealth?

Abstract

Protection of privacy is one of the areas most often claimed as having the potential for significant development as a result of incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”). As is well known, English law lacks a general remedy for infringement of privacyper se: although the courts have lamented the lack of protection for private individuals (notably from the press), they have hitherto left it to Parliament to intervene. After flirtation with introducing either a specific statutory code applicable to intrusive journalistic activities or a general statutory tort of infringement of privacy, the Conservative government abandoned the idea altogether.1Perhaps because of the lack of legislative concern (politicians, after all, have reasons of strong self-interest not to provoke the press), the judiciary has expressed renewed interest, at least through extra-judicial pronouncements2and broad hints in one recent House of Lords decision that the time for reconsideration may be fast approaching.3