Iain Wilson writes:
Here we are again. The press doesn’t like us having private lives and the government doesn’t like judges making decisions it disagrees with. These two angsts collided recently following the Court of Appeal’s decision in HRH the Duchess of Sussex v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 1810. Something, we are told, needs to be done. The answer apparently is (yet again) to abolish the Human Rights Act 1998 and introduce a system whereby the government can review and nullify the effect of binding court decisions.
Let’s start with privacy. It is odd to have to defend – or even define – privacy. If we’re getting undressed, we expect to be able to do so in private. If we are seeing our doctor, we expect details relating to any medical condition to be kept confidential. If we are engaged in sexual activity, we expect this to be a matter between ourselves and our partners. If we are sending a family member a WhatsApp message, the presumption is that it won’t end up in a national newspaper. Nothing about any of this seems to be particularly controversial or European (or, as the current government puts it, ‘Germanic’).
Read more at Inforrm.