CENSORED - Media Law Week Five (PART ONE)

Finally I am blogging about a lecture the week that it happened! Hurrah. I wish I could say my day has been made up of these little victories, but alas, it has been yet another fairly unproductive and uneventful day. Still, I'll chalk this one up in the win column and, if I can do another HCJ blog and book my ticket home for the weekend, call it a good day.

So this particular blog will be coming at you in two parts. This is the first, an actual discussion on the events of the lecture and information on the topic of CONFIDENTIALITY. The second part will be a review of this weeks WINOL production by the second years.

CONFIDENTIALITY

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the privacy of an individual, and guarantees everyone the right to enjoyment of normal family life. If anyone feels that their right has been infringed upon, they can take one of many actions. This blog will focus on the action for Breach of Confidence.
Basically, law states that anyone who receives confidential information must not take unfair advantage of it. It is comprised of three parts:
- It must have the necessary quality of confidence
- The information must be conveyed in circumstances imposing an obligation of confidence
- The information must have been communicated further without authorisation, and to the detriment of the party that originally communicated it.

All three aspects must be present for a breach of confidence to occur, and if it does so then those publishing such information are likely to have action taken against them.
The biggest action against a breach of confidence is an injunction. This can be used when the person to whom the confidence is owed discovers, prior to publication, that the information is intended to be distributed. In this case, if an injunction is granted by a court, the information cannot be published by any source, and if it is then the offending organisation will be fined. Injunctions are, however, temporary, and can be lifted if the publisher can make a compelling case in court as to why the story should be printed. They are only intended to prevent the story being run until such a time as the case can be heard and decided in full.
If an injunction is sought, the individual seeking the injunction must give an undertaking that he will pay any damages to the defendant, if the injunction is proved to be wrongly granted in court.
A court can also order a journalist to declare the source of their information, or destroy the confidential matter.
If the piece is published, a publication can be ordered to pay some or all of the profits they received to the offended party. They may also be able to claim damages from the publisher.

Of course, if the material to be published is "in the public interest", then a judge is unlikely to grant an injunction. This is covered by Section 12 of the Human Rights Act, which defends the freedom of speech. A judge must balance whether it is more in the public interest to protect privacy or disclose important information.