Opinion: “Free speech may be the lifeblood of democracy, but are only the press entitled to it?” Paul Tweed

I would refute Lord Lester’s recent assertion that English libel law is “notoriously costly, complicated and stifling of free speech”.

Watching the intense media frenzy on both sides of the Atlantic over so-called ‘libel tourism’ and reform of our libel laws, it is easy to forget the interests of the ordinary man in the street. It is not so much the international litigant who is likely to be affected by the draconian reforms being advocated in the press, but rather the rights of the individual UK citizen.

Opinion: “Private Lives – Part 2” Amber Melville-Brown

In the second part of this post Amber Melville-Brown concludes her round up of the current privacy state of play across the continent with particular reference to Max Mosley’s forthcoming Strasbourg case.

Pints of milk

There are clear differences in approach towards privacy in different European countries. The UK courts have not yet gone so far as Von Hannover in finding that images taken in public, short of some additional relevant factor, constitute an invasion of privacy. While in the case of Peck, images of a man clearly in distress, in the run up to his attempted suicide, captured on CCTV and broadcast to the nation, did invade his privacy, those of musician Elton John simply walking, casually dressed, from his Rolls Royce to his front gate, did not.