The Origin of Privacy as a Legal Value: A Reflection on Roman and English Law

Abstract

In Roman law, what we call a right to privacy can be somehow recognized, but without a specific legal definition or a characteristic content This is a consequence of the needs of the time. The protection provided was the result of the existence of certain actions, mainly the actio iniuriarum, as the means to protect individual personality. The starting point for this is the political structure of the civitas romana, in which the citizen exists prior to the State and is different from it. As a historical comparatist exercise, this study affirms that English law lacks the kind of targeted action against invasions of privacy that a modern society, individual-based, needs. The Roman example shows the strength of specific private-law actions in preference to vague public-law controls.