Privacy and Injunctions - Evidence - Parliament

Sir Christopher Meyer, Martin Moore, Julian Petley, and John Kampfner—Oral evidence
(QQ 404–444)
being complete disagreement, even before something was given to MPs to look at, about
where one drew the line between public and private. Put another way, how would you
define the public interest and, moving on from there, how could you have a statute that said
something sensible above and beyond what was in the law on privacy? In the end, the thing
was discarded and it died a death.
I do not think that problem has been resolved today. There is a new factor,
which is the Human Rights Act and the two articles we talk about interminably:
articles 8 and 10. The question I would throw back at you, if I may, is: if it has
been beyond the courts to come up with a final, definitive definition of what
constitutes the public interest, and the Press Complaints Commission, which deals
with far more privacy cases than the courts, is unable to go beyond a number of
illustrative examples of what might involve the public interest, I think that the last
place on God’s earth where this conundrum can be resolved is in the House of
Commons. I mean no disrespect to the members of the House. It is just too
difficult.
One would love democratic backing.
Q407 Lord Myners: Sir Christopher, first, I am not a member of the House of
Commons.
Sir Christopher Meyer: Or even the House of Lords.
Q408 Lord Myners: Second, our task is to ask you the questions rather than for
you to ask us questions. I will not speak for the PCC, but, surely, one of the reasons judges
have struggled here is that Parliament has not passed a privacy law with very clear direction.
I put it to you that you are so much of an insider that you are now cynical about the ability
of Parliament to do very much at all.
Sir Christopher Meyer: My Lord, I have never been considered an insider. I do not
think I am an insider, but I have a pretty good view of things. What I am saying is that,
having spent six years wrestling with these issues of privacy, you have a three-tiered system,
which I do not think Parliament can improve. You establish general principles as laid out in
articles 8 and 10. Then you start implementing these articles case by case, and bit by bit you
build up a body of jurisprudence. I do not think you can do better than that.
If this is going to become part of a statute which goes through both Houses and
becomes the law of the land, you have to cater in the legislation for every possible
permutation of case involving what is legitimately in the public interest and what legitimately
belongs to private life. As always, the devil is in the detail and statute cannot embrace all
those devils.
Q409 Martin Horwood: When I had a real job, I worked in marketing and
advertising. We worked under the self-regulating system of the advertising code, and there
was an incredibly effective sanction. If your ads or mail shots were judged to be in breach of
that code, media owners and mailing houses would not touch them, because they would be
in breach of the code if they did. That was incredibly strong. Is not the problem that there
is no comparable sanction in the case of the PCC and not all national newspapers are even
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