Remember Max Mosley? Of course you do! He was the motor sports boss who the News of the World reported had a sado masochistic orgy with five women. The bit people really get interested in is that the orgy had supposedly Nazi overtones; interesting if you know your history. Although he was paid damages (£60,000 to be exact) he argued that since the details of his private life were now public knowledge this was not enough to restore his reputation. This is quite interesting when you consider libel as to be a libelous statement one of the criteria is that it lowers the persons reputation in the minds of right thinking people (click here for a separate post on libel). The former president of the International Automobile Federation took his case to the Human Rights Court, challenging UK laws which allow publication without giving targets advanced warning. He claimed that since he was not warned about the papers intention to run the story, so he could not apply for an injunction to prevent the story from being published (Injunctions, here, here and here).
He told the BBC '"This is just about whether the newspapers should have the right to publicise very private aspects of people's lives which there's no public interest in at all - it's just purely for titillation and to sell newspapers."' However the court in Strasbourg begged to differ ruling that "the media was not required to give prior notice" because they are already self regulated and access to civil courts for damages and interim injunctions. Ruling otherwise would also have called into question the defence of public interest as having the press warn the people in question every time a story is about to be published would mean exceptions would have to be made for public interest.
He told the BBC '"This is just about whether the newspapers should have the right to publicise very private aspects of people's lives which there's no public interest in at all - it's just purely for titillation and to sell newspapers."' However the court in Strasbourg begged to differ ruling that "the media was not required to give prior notice" because they are already self regulated and access to civil courts for damages and interim injunctions. Ruling otherwise would also have called into question the defence of public interest as having the press warn the people in question every time a story is about to be published would mean exceptions would have to be made for public interest.
The article is an interesting read and available here on the BBC news website. It will also be interesting to see whether Mosley appeals again and what implication this has on the current injunction news, i.e. supposedly revealing them on Twitter.
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