Harry, William, their Mum and privacy

Channel Four 1; The Princes:0


It was good to see that Channel Four did not buckle under the open pressure Princes Harry and William exerted over the documentary about Diana's death.

The whole affair had some quaint sidelines to it. Not the least of them was having a senior aide view the documentary and then write on their behalf what their reaction would have been if they had seen it. The aide complained that Channel Four would not release a tape of the documentary for them to see. Yet the aide was able to trot along to Channel Four's offices to see it. Would that be too much to ask of the Princes if they really wanted to judge it?

Good chance of an injunction
The most welcome part of it was that the Princes did not reach for their lawyers. With the way that privacy law is developing in England and Wales, they might have had a good change of gaining a pre-broadcast injunction, at the least.

Their action could have been triggered by Article 8 of the Human Rights convention now in UK law as a result of the 1998 Human Rights Act.

Article 8, headed Right to respect for private and family life says: “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.”

There are two paragraphs in the letter sent to Channel Four which focus on the issue of privacy:

“These photographs, regardless of the fact that they do not actually show the Princess's features, are redolent with the atmosphere and tragedy of the closing moments of her life.

“As such, they will cause acute distress if they are shown to a public audience, not just for themselves, but also on their mother's behalf, in the sense of intruding upon the privacy and dignity of her last minutes.”

There's that word again: privacy.

I doubt that this is the end of the issue. The documentary is broadcast. But in future I expect them to move more swiftly for their lawyers. It will set a very unhealthy precedent for UK media. But I suspect that they have an unhealthy attitude to freedom of expression already.

Dad's done it
After all, their old man has used the law to squash further publication of his diaries. Diaries in which he made very derogatory remarks about foreign leaders, among others. And diaries which he had circulated himself to a select band. But not for us to see what our next monarch really thinks.

What does “respect” mean?
As for the boys, it all hinges on the word “respect” in Article 8. I can't find a definition of respect in the standard legal dictionaries I've got access to. If somebody else can find a definition, please tell me. It will, surely have to be defined somewhere in case law.

The full text of the letter from Clarence House.

Why did it take them so long? The PCC ruling and Ruth Kelly

I suppose it was decorum which made the Press Complaints Commission deliberate so long over Ruth Kelly’s objection to a Mirror article. She complained to the PCC about an article published on January 8th. It said she had sent her child with learning difficulties to a private school. This was an unnecessary intrusion into the child’s ability to attend its new school, she said. It therefore breached the PCC’s code clause 6, she claimed.

Only on March 15th did the PCC reply. Its decision: “Not upheld.” In other words, no go Ruth.

It really was a bit of a no-brainer. A cabinet minister with previous responsibility for schools should have her decisions about her children’s schooling matched against her public policies.

The complaint was all part of the Labour Government’s steady pressure on the press. The Government wants to extend privacy to be as wide as it is in, for example, France. One of its first acts was to introduce the Human Rights Act. This includes an explicit privacy clause.

Some judges have taken this as a cue to develop a fully-blown privacy law through judgements such as against the Mirror, again, over the Naomi Campbell story.

The recent libel case brought by Sir Martin Sorrell was twinned with an action for breach of privacy. We’ll see more and more of this.

We won’t see the Government letting up either. But any plans to make the role of the PCC official and to create the equivalent of an Ofcom will be ditched by any serious politician.

If they want to cosy up to the likes of Murdoch they will not think of making the PCC anything but what it is: voluntary and run by the press for the press.

Because, strange to say, you get very little “invasion” of the “privacy” of press tycoons. They, after all, have powerful weapons with which to answer back.

But for ex-press tycoons, the rules are different. As “Lord” Conrad Black is now finding out.

The full PCC decision.

And the article Kelly found so offensive.

The PCC code.