Cases

Spencer v United Kingdom

Comment

This well-known case shows how far, in the European Commision's eyes, English law had come by 1995 in the development of the law of confidence to protect personal privacy. It reversed an earlier finding of the Commission in Winer v UK (1986) that failure to take a breach of confidence action did not constitute a failure to exhaust domestic remedies in view of the then uncertainty as to the precise scope and extent of that remedy. The Government's argument that the domestic system as a whole provided adequate protection for private and family and struck an appropriate balance between those rights under Article 8 and the rights of the media under Article 10, were not tested. However, the Commission would not exclude the possibility that the absence of an actionable remedy in confidence, on the facts of this case, could have amounted to a breach of Article 8.

Areas of work

Human Rights
Media Law
Privacy and Confidence

Also