ABSTRACT
While section 3 does not refer to common law, as seen above, the Act requires that the common law be developed consistently with Convention rights, and section 6, which includes courts and tribunals as public bodies, underpins the jurisdiction. Development of the common law has been seen most clearly in relation to privacy, which engages three issues. First, there is no common law right to privacy: as Glidewell LJ stated in Kaye v Robertson (1991), ‘It is wellknown that in English law there is no right to privacy’. Secondly, privacy rights under common law derive from a relationship of confidence and breach of that confidentiality. Thirdly, Article 8 protects privacy rights in relation to family life, the home and correspondence. In Venables v News Group Newspapers Ltd (2001), an injunction was granted which prevents, indefinitely, the media from revealing the identity and whereabouts of the applicant. Butler-Sloss LJ recognised that the defendant newspapers were not within the definition of public authorities, but nevertheless asserted that the court – as a public authority – must itself act compatibly with the Convention. Article 8 of the Convention thus prevailed over Article 10 (freedom of expression) and was applied against a private body. Similarly, in Campbell v MGN Ltd (2002), the High Court developed the law of breach of confidence in a manner which restricted the press from unauthorised disclosure of details of treatment undertaken by the model Naomi Campbell and awarded her damages, thereby in all but name recognising a right to privacy which is enforceable against non-public bodies. On this, see further Chapter 20.
