Andrew Marr, we read in Private Eye, was in court earlier this year obtaining an injunction to prevent publication of private information about him. Knowing the tendency of his fellow journos to scent blood at this kind of thing, he also obtained an injunction to prevent any reporting of the fact that he’d been in court at all.

Naturally he’s come in for a bit of scathe from the old cynics at the Eye, who recall his pronouncement 11 years ago on the preferability of Parliament making privacy laws, rather then the Judiciary creating it on the hoof.

Few would disagree, but as Marr had no doubt observed, it’s become increasingly evident that Parliament hasn’t the stomach to tackle privacy intrusion. Last time the Government tried, by inserting a clause in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill this spring, they were so heavily lobbied by Associated Newspapers and News International, they were forced to remove the provision, which raised the penalty for journalists stealing data, from a fine (usually anyway paid by their bosses) to a prison sentence. In fact, they even weakened the existing position by broadening further the statutory defence of ‘Public Interest’.

As we all know the ShagRags regularly confuse ‘Public Interest’ with ‘Pubic Interest’ but they consistently get away with it.

Andrew Marr – and indeed Ian Hislop, along with the rest of the nation have a perfectly defensible, moral right to protect their private lives from intrusion by hacks seeking salacious gossip to sell their papers.

The mantra regularly intoned by self-righteous journalists who believe the British Press is sacrosanct and any statutory law against the invasion of personal privacy would interfere with genuine investigative journalism ignores the existence of the Public Interest defence against charges of such invasion. But it should be clear that this defence will apply only when individuals have acted in private in a way that is illegal or in direct contradiction of their public function. The personal relationships, for example, of the editor of the Independent, or the sexual predilections of the president of the FIA have no bearing at all on their ability to perform their jobs.

In France the notion of ‘private life’ has been developed through case law by the French courts, which hold that ‘a person’s private life includes his or her love life, friendships, family circumstances, leisure activities, political opinions, trade union or religious affiliation and state of health.’ The idea that a strong interpretation of ‘privacy’ would emasculate press freedom isn’t borne out in practice in France, where despite this clear delineation of personal privacy, publications such as Le Canard Enchainé are quite capable of damning journalism – when it’s clearly justified rather than merely gratuitous.

We own our Personal Privacy in the same way that we own our Intellectual Property and it is equally vulnerable to theft. It also merits the same degree of consideration and protection.

Andrew Marr deserves to be fully supported in his efforts to keep his private life off the pages of British newspapers. And I would support Ian Hislop just as strongly in the same circumstances.

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