This month at the European Court of Human Rights in Mosley v. United Kingdom, the Court arrived at a decision regarding the sexual videos and reports of Max Mosley, the former F1 boss, that were released by the News of the World and cause much consternation to Mosley.
That there was a breach of the doctrine of “pre-notification” was one of the contentions. This doctrine states that before any disparaging material, that would infringe on the right to privacy of an individual, was published, the publisher had to give a prior notification to the person who would be affected by such a publication.
In UK law, there is no statutory protection for the Right to Privacy and only Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights protects this right. The ECHR however held that the UK had not violated this Article, ruling that States had a wide margin of appreciation in enforcing this Article. Also that the reconciliation between freedom of expression and right to privacy is very difficult to arrive at.
For an analysis of the judgment and the status of right to privacy in UK, see and the NY Times article here.
Legal Decisions 