The world and his dog have ripped into Paul Dacre of the Daily Tory for his whining about Mr Justice Eady’s decision to allow Max Mosely a bit of privacy. Dacre’s thesis comes down to this: Mosely was a pervert who liked to engage in Nazi themed orgies; exposing such behaviour was a just act because it exposed his moral repugnance, his unsuitability for the governance of motor sport, and, well, stuff. The fact it made a highly profitable headline for the Mail was, of course, by-the-by in its pursuit of the public good.
So Dacre & the Mail are dissembling cunts. Were they incorrect? Most of the legal blogosphere is of the view that they were. Carl Gardner did a pre-eminent job in kicking them in the nuts: characteristically forensic and on the mark in so far as it went. Astonishingly the Government weighed in with the remarkable statement:
“10 November 2008
Statement from the Judicial Communications Office — Speech by Mr Paul Dacre
“Judges determine privacy cases in accordance with the law and the particular evidence presented by both parties. Any High Court judgment can be appealed to the Court of Appeal”.
This comment was issued in response to a speech by Mr Paul Dacre, Editor of the Daily Mail, to the Society of Editors.”
Brief to the point of being almost invisible this was the governmental ‘raised eye brow’ and its brevity should not be taken as undermining its, remarkable, public disapproval of Dacre’s remarks. Other lawyers have weighed in to defend Eady. The essence of their defense was that:
- Eady was reflecting the Human Rights Act
- He was complying with ECHR jurisprudence
- He was merely one of a series of judges interpretive the new privacy reality
- The judgment didn’t give excessive protection to the amoral
- the courts protected newspapers in a matching commitment to freedom of the press that Dacre didn’t complain about.
All true. And Geeklawyer despises the Daily Mail even more than Karl Marx. But even if Dacre is fundamentally misconceived in his objections to case law and statute, and he is, he points, albeit indirectly, at the larger and more valid issues about valid privacy policy objections to current law.
Traditionally privacy policy in the UK has been that you don’t, as a default position, have it. Sure, contractual reasons might create it or confidentiality rules might, under very limited circumstances, allow it but otherwise you are fair game. It’s the Anglo-Saxon/Common Law approach and it fits in with a minimalist libertarian approach to regulatory conduct. Dacre’s comments can be framed within that conception. Does Mosely have a right to privacy on such a matter? Or more precisely since the court has said yes, should he have such a right? Geeklawyer, regrettably, says, no.
A simple look at the law reports demonstrates that whatever the theoretical concerns of privacy activists the newspapers ae mostly concerned with scummy celebrities. Sure, there are occasional horror stories like the Sunday Sport’s repulsive abuse of Gordon Kaye while he was vulnerable and defenseless in hospital recovering from an awful accident. But for the most part it is celebrity cunts like Sienna Miller Russell Brand and Max Moseley, all of whom are well able to wield legal and PR resources in their own defense. And they all are the first to tip off the media when they are attending an event and want publicity that helps their careers.
So sure if it were the weak defenseless and vulnerable falling prey to the press then Geeklawyer would be sympathetic. Were it possible to draft privacy laws to address the much much bigger threat of governments amassing huge databases on our private lives so as to control us then, again, Geeklawyer would support them.
The sad truth is that privacy laws mostly, in practice, protect the powerful and the rich against the media. Geeklawyer would be content to see media rights strengthened against whores like Britney Spears, JK Rowlins, Naomi Campbell, Victoria Beckham etc so long as such media protection extended merely to exposing people such as them.
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