Family law inspires the fight for privacy
Family
Comment | 28 April 2011
As debate over the law of privacy features prominently in the popular press, two recent privacy rulings have drawn on domestic and international family law to extend the protection available to individuals seeking to enforce their right to a private and family life. In both cases injunctions were granted preventing publication of private information.
In ETK v News Group Newspapers [2011] EWCA Civ 439 the Court of Appeal ruled that when a court balances a claimant’s right to privacy and a newspaper’s right to freedom of expression the court should “accord particular weight to the [privacy] rights of any children likely to be affected by the publication, if that would be likely to harm their interests.” In future courts must consider the effect on children of press revelations about the private life of their parents.
The leading judgment was given by Lord Justice Ward, a former judge of the Family Division of the High Court. In its ruling the Court of Appeal drew on the provisions of a number of international conventions concerning the rights of children including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 which states that "in all actions concerning children…the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration."
In OPQ v BJM & CJM [2011] EWHC 1059 Mr Justice Eady granted the adult Claimant in a privacy action a contra mundum injunction, a form of injunction usually granted only in family proceedings or in cases giving anonymity to notorious convicted criminals such as Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, Mary Bell and Maxine Carr.
Whilst these innovations have been met with howls of protest in the national media as part of its ongoing campaign to reverse the development of an effective law of privacy, they will be welcomed by anyone who believes that individuals should be entitled to prevent the media intruding on their privacy for commercial gain.
