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Bulletins Story:
THE CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORTS COMMITTEE TELL IT LIKE IT
IS
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Date:
1.07.2003
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The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sports Committee has
published its long-awaited report on Privacy and Media Intrusion.
In it the Committee made a series of recommendations. The one which
has gathered the most publicity is that the Government 'bring
forward legislative proposals to clarify the protection that
individuals can expect from unwarranted intrusion by anyone - not
the press alone - into their private lives.' As the Committee
rightly says: 'This is necessary fully to satisfy the obligations
upon the UK under the European Convention on Human Rights.' This
was illustrated recently by the Peck case (see our February 2003
early warning).
There is already by means of the Human Rights Act a legislative
provision providing some protection for individuals against
intrusions into the private lives of individuals. This is by the
importation (albeit obliquely) of Article 8 of the European
Convention on Human Rights into our law. Here are some of the other
recommendations made by the Committee.
The Committee recommended that the PCC 'should consider
establishing a dedicated pre-publication team to handle enquiries
about [prior restraint] issues from the public and liaison with the
relevant editor on the matters raised.' This is because it is at
present only by means of a legal injunction (assuming legal rights
have been infringed) that prior restraint of material which
breaches the PCC Code can be obtained.
The Committee recommends that the Code should 'explicitly ban
payments to the Police for information...' It is perhaps remarkable
that it should be necessary for the Committee to make such a
recommendation to a body representing the press, but since
admissions were made before the Committee that such payments were
made, despite the fact that they are plainly illegal, voluntary
acceptance by the press that such payments are inappropriate may
fare better than the mere fact that they are illegal.
The Committee recommended that press members of the Commission
and of the Code Committee 'who preside over persistently offending
publications should be required to stand down and should ineligible
for reappointment for a period...' It also recommended that the lay
majority on the Commission should be increased by at least one, and
that the Code Committee (presently composed entirely of editors)
should be re-established with a significant minority of lay
members.
On the issue of prominence, the Committee recommended that 'any
publication required to publish a formal PCC adjudication must
include a prominent reference to that adjudication on its front
page...' This seems to have been accepted by the PCC chairman Sir
Christopher Meyer.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly if the Commission is going
to be perceived as having any teeth in the face of the powerful
creature that it is designed to tame, the Committee recommended the
establishment of 'a fixed scale of compensatory awards to be made
in serious cases...' As we all know, breaches of the Code are
committed by (in particular) the popular press because they are
commercially lucrative. If the Code is going to have a real impact
on such abuses of the rights of the individual, then the Commission
which adjudicates upon it must have the power to impose real
financial penalties.
Jonathan
Coad
1 July
2003
169
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