Supermodel Naomi Campbell can be seen smiling from the pages of your newspaper this morning (Friday May 7) as she celebrates having overturned a ruling by the Court of Appeal by winning her action against the Mirror in the House of Lords.
You'll recall that back in 2001 the Mirror (now infamous for its picture "scoops") snapped Campbell emerging into the King's Road in trendy South West London, not from Dolce & Gabanna as you may have expected but from the less salubrious Narcotics Anonymous.
Campbell had famously denied in the media ever having had a drug problem. Therefore, the front-page story was the Mirror's attempt at seeking photographic evidence to the contrary and of course it sought to defend itself by saying it was doing this in the public interest.
But in exposing falsehoods made by Campbell, had the Mirror overstepped the mark by publishing associated facts about her private life?
As reported in Brand Republic previously, the legal arguments turned on whether Campbell had a residual area of privacy which the court was bound to protect if its revelation would amount to a breach of confidentiality.
This legal gymnastic feat was necessary if Campbell was to succeed because there isn't a separate law of privacy in the UK, so it had to be a kind of back door recognition. Clear as mud really. And the kind of legal nicety that keeps lawyers in business.
By a three-two majority, the Law Lords hava just voted in Campbell's favour, reversing the decision of the Appeal Court that had found in favour of the Mirror.
The fact it was a split decision rather than a unanimous one is an indication that even the Law Lords are confused when attempting to balance two conflicting legal principles: the right to privacy (Article 8) and the right to freedom of expression (Article 10) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
What this judgment means for celebrities and the media
The only interpretation that's likely to stack up is that the House of Lords judgment is good news for celebrities who want to conduct themselves in a private capacity outside of the glare of the TV cameras or the ever present paparazzi.
"This judgment appears to go a long way in recognising that even public figures do have some rights to privacy" Jeremy Summers, founder of SK, a leading intellectual property law firm, says.
So will this open the floodgates of litigation and see a rash of celebrities hot footing it to English courts to scare the living daylights out of the free press?
Summers sounds a note of caution. "I definitely think that cases will be judged on their individual merits until we know exactly where the line between the right of freedom of expression and the right to privacy actually lies." So there's still a risk that the courts may draw the line in favour of the media if the balance of interests tips in its favour of freedom of expression.
According to Jonathan Coad, a lawyer with a celebrity A-list of clients, the Campbell judgment will definitely encourage more celebrities to assert that the line has been crossed.
"It's not so much a legal judgment but one of instinct and principle which will determine whether the court will intervene on an issue of privacy or not," Coad says. And he's probably right.
What is certain is that the media will need to think twice before running exposes about the rich and famous where this could amount to a breach of confidentiality and therefore fall foul of an emerging common law right to privacy as established by the Campbell case.
Ardi Kolah appears on the Chartered Institute of Marketing's global . He is author of 'Essential Law for Marketers' (Butterworth Heinemann, £25.00). Read the review of the book on Brand Republic and order your copy online
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