Having eyed each other with their traditional distrust in the growing conflict between freedom of speech and personal privacy, the media and the law are on the verge of a struggle which could end in the collapse of selfregulation. Since 2000, the Human Rights Act (HRA) has given British people what most of the European Union’s citizens already had: a legal right to free speech. It also handed them a legal right to privacy. Rather than attempt to reconcile the two competing Articles at source, the framers of the legislation are allowing them to fight it out and have appointed the courts to referee. Article 8, the Right to Respect for Private and Family Life, states: “Everyone has the right […]
