Public places, private lives: Balancing of privacy and freedom of expression in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The rights of privacy and expression often conflict. Case law from the United Kingdom suggests that the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law has spurred the growth of domestic privacy law at the expense of the rights of the press to free expression and, in line with prior theory, has also granted greater political authority to courts and judges tasked with balancing privacy and expression in domestic legal disputes. These shifts in privacy case law may also suggest that incorporation has increased opportunities for participatory democratic governance by the citizenry, at least through enhanced access to judicial remedies for privacy violations and the enforcement of Convention rights, as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights.