ABSTRACT
This chapter is centrally concerned with personal autonomy in the sense of the ability of the individual to make decisions free from State interference regarding the most intimate aspects of her personal life. It also touches on the question of the positive obligations of the State in relation to furthering the ability to exercise autonomy As a linked value, it considers the interest of the individual in freedom from humiliation, also in terms of both negative and positive obligations. It will be found that in some respects this area resembles that considered in Chapter 10-the non-consensual disclosure of personal information. In both, domestic law showed a marked failure to recognise the value of autonomy at stake, which in the one instance may be termed informational and in the other, substantive.2 As Chapter 10 demonstrated, it was only gradually, and ultimately under the impetus of the Human Rights Act (HRA), that personal information found legal protection from non-consensual publication. Similarly, it was the influence of the European Convention on Human Rights that, as this chapter will demonstrate, led to changes in domestic law to reflect respect for the sexual orientation of homosexuals.
