House of Lords declined to recognise tort of invasion of privacy in English law<\/p>\n
The claimants were strip-searched for drugs on a prison visit. At trial, the judge found trespass against the person in relation to both claimants consisting of wilfully causing a person to do something to himself which infringed his privacy. The defendant appealed against the finding of trespass and was successful in the Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n
In cases such as Kaye v Robertson <\/em><\/strong>[1991] FSR 62, <\/strong>it was well established that there exists no tort of invasion of privacy in English law. An oft-cited stumbling block to the establishment of such a tort was the difficulty in clearly defining the concept of privacy. The claimants submitted that this was a case in which the House should find that the English common law recognises a remedy for an invasion of privacy. The claimants referred to various judgements of the European Court of Human Rights which suggested that English law does not provide a valid remedy in respect of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.<\/p>\n The appeal was dismissed. Lord Hoffmann recognised that the concept of privacy underpins the common law of breach of confidence which was significantly developed in Campbell v MGN Ltd <\/em><\/strong>[2003] QB 633 <\/strong>but did not recognise a tort of invasion of privacy. The Court did not consider that there was anything in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights which required some high-level principle of privacy. Furthermore, this case was decided immediately prior to the Human Rights Act 1998<\/strong> and the Court noted that the coming into force of that Act weakened the argument that a general tort of invasion of privacy at common law is needed to fill gaps in existing remedies.<\/p>\n 297 words<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The claimants were strip-searched for drugs on a prison visit. At trial, the judge found trespass against the person in relation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85],"class_list":["post-5673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cases","tag-uk-law"],"yoast_head":"\nDecision\/Outcome<\/h3>\n