SOLICITORS’ INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP
Uniting Lawyers for Human Rights around the World PRESS RELEASE Privacy law: a threat to freedom of expression? On Wednesday 26th November Mark Stephens addressed a meeting of the SIHRG and assailed the extension by the British Courts of privacy law protection. Renowned international expert and human rights lawyer Mark Stephens provided a comprehensive analysis of recent developments in the field of privacy law and was fiercely critical of judges' attempts to impose fixed guidelines on the bounds of media decency. Mark Stephens called for the revaluation of existing privacy laws, highlighting the potential difficulties which these can pose to NGOs such as Amnesty and Greenpeace who depend upon an accurate and unrestricted flow of information. Berating a judicial move towards a doctrine of "two party consent" in privacy cases, he called for a tighter and more closely defined test to be imposed on the restriction of information, and for public and third party interests to be considered in greater depth. Encouraging a more open dialogue on the application of Convention rights to European privacy cases he predicted that future trials would challenge the courts' existing desire to balance the Article 10 right to freedom of expression with the Roman law presumption for the maintenance of individual reputation.
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Privacy law press release |