There is nothing to stop the PCC regaining a prominent role in issues of privacy - but that is best done by the collective will of editors
There was a significant, if little reported, intervention in the current storm over privacy injunctions this week with the appearance on BBC2's Newsnight of Baroness Buscombe, the chair of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). She said directly that if Ryan Giggs had chosen the route of self-regulation rather than the courts, the PCC would have stopped the press from publishing the story of his alleged extramarital relationship. Lady Buscombe queried the public interest in the story and said that the PCC had "an almost 100% success rate" in stopping such stories when people approached it.
Her remarks are important, because they indicate that the love life of an errant footballer does not, in her view, meet the PCC's public interest test (of exposing crime or serious impropriety) ? and suggest that the press's own regulator is in broad agreement with the Giggs case judgment by Mr Justice Eady. This is a very different narrative from the one being advanced in some quarters ? that it is all the fault of out-of-touch and unelected judges.
Lady Buscombe's intervention is also important in the light of a letter from Lord Wakeham, a former Chairman of the PCC, in yesterday's Daily Telegraph. He argued that the intention of section 12 of the Human Rights Act (HRA) was that the PCC, not the courts, should be the main forum for resolving privacy matters and that the HRA now needs to be amended to limit the role of the courts "to dealing with issues that affect only public authorities and the state". In Lord Wakeham's mind, this would reassert the role of the PCC.
It is not clear whether Lord Wakeham has read the recent judgments in privacy cases, but the judges invariably do take account of section 12. In some cases there has been no attempt to argue any public interest. In one case the media organisations dropped their opposition to an injunction having heard medical evidence. So it is not clear that the PCC would have offered the press any more joy than the courts in some of the more notorious recent cases. In any event the PCC has much to prove, having acted so feebly in response to phone hacking.
The European convention requires governments to display that there are remedies when human rights are infringed ? including the rights of individuals, and not only when the harm is caused by the state or public authorities. It is partly because the PCC was so ineffective in matters of privacy (including, it has to be said, under Lord Wakeham) that the courts' role has become more prominent. If the PCC wants to get back in the game there is nothing to stop it. But that is best done by the collective will of editors rather than rewriting the HRA.
Equality Alastair Cook Kevin Campbell Chelsea United States Alexander McCall Smith
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