Reform of the privacy laws

Stargal

I'm not 100% certain that this is the right place to post this, so mods feel free to move if it isn't!

As part of my Masters (in Journalism), I have to write an essay on the background to proposals for reform of the law of privacy contained in the Privacy Bill. However the reading list we were given was very short, and I want to make sure that I get all the crucial readings about this issue - so would anyone have suggestions for must-read texts on this subject?

Understandably, I don't want to write the essay and then find out that I missed out on some uber-important articles!

Any help would be much appreciated.

dermot_sheehan

Hey Christine,

Look at a tort law book on breach of confidence. Douglas v. Hello English High Court judgement gives a good outline of the common law tort of breach of confidence http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2005/595.html and how it's been modified by the European Convention Article 8 obligation to protect the private family life of the individual. The English Court applied the Strasbourg case of von Hannover v. Germany http://www.echr.coe.int/eng/Press/2004/June/ChamberjudgmentVonHannover240604.htm which held that taking photos of a public figure can in certain cases violate the convention (which is now part of irish domestic law and courts are obliged to give effect to it)

Stargal

Thanks dude, appreciate it! Our lecturer is some high-flying Law Reform Commission guy and this is the first essay we've had to do for him, so want to make sure that it's good.

If you ever have any journalism, sociology or social policy questions then give me a shout...;)

Tom Young

Well actually agree with the references above, you might want to write about how the European Convention of Human Rights took 50 years to make it to the Irish statute books after initial ratification and now appears as an act in Ireland with little or not real affect (sic).

I'd add some fairly seminal Irish cases if you'd like to have some relevanace to Journalism: Kennedy and Arnold v. Ireland (madamme editor of Irish Times) and also the Norris case either Norris v. Ireland at the ECHR or Norris v. Attorney General (this one relates to privacy as well).

I think the Kennedy and Arnold case was a case involving illegal and irregular telephone tapping of journalists phones by the government. I am fairly sure that it was a key issue in the fall of the last Haughey government or if not the last, the second last

Some other aspects are that privacy in an unenumerated right in Ireland stemming from a case called Magee v. Attorney General, this is an old case and I am too tired to find the citiation (sorry) the gist is that Mrs Magee wanted to have sex with her husband using prophilactics or contraceptives (importation of which was banned under a British statute) which was not generally acceptable in the Ireland of those days. She claimed the right to marital privacy and I think also the rights not to have furuther children, she had a few at that stage. My understanding is that the family had an addition after this.

So 1937 Article 40.3 protects privacy (kind of).

So other aspects you might like to write about are maybe the most recent case from EHCR last week or so, Copland v. UK. http://www.thegovernmentsays.com/cache/90069.html

**There are some privacy cases listed in the body of that link worth a punt as well, they are fairly recent and yes, the link and judgement is short from the ECHR (thank God)**

If the link is dead sorry, you can google it.

I wrote Gambrell v. WPC (1995) which is a darned case on modifications of Company Articles of association of expropriation of minority shareholders, its an interesting case if anyones looking for a slant on S.15 of 1963 Act or S. 38 of 1983 or indeed S. 27 of 1963 Companies Acts. So other cases on this and similar of latest review are: Andrews v. Gas Meter [1897], Shuttleworth Bros v. Cox [1927], Greenhalgh v. Ardene Cinemas Ltd. [1951], Sidebottom v Kershaw Lease and Co. [1920] Brown v. British Abrasive Wheel Co. [1919]