Stephen Hockman QC returns to the controversy of privacy, parliament & the courts
In my previous article I pointed out that by its approach to issues of privacy, the media was attempting to gain “significant new ground within our political system”. I had in mind the long campaign of criticism in some parts of the media of judicial decision-making in the field of privacy. A characteristic of this criticism was to allege that judicial decisions on privacy represented “judge-made law” and had no democratic legitimacy. This approach by the media over-looked the fact that Art 8 of the Human Rights Convention, which has been part of our law since the coming into force of the Human Rights Act in the year 2000, guarantees a right to family life save to the extent that this right must necessarily be overridden in a democratic society. However the main theme of my article was the weakness of the political reaction to this tension between the media and the courts: “What is lacking at present, in this most vital of debates, is a clear and—if at
