Page 103 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

94 David Rolph

to be applied; the differences emerged from the application of the principles to
the facts.
However, in light of the European Court of Human Rights‘ decision in
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Von Hannover v Germany, the principles identified by the House of Lords in
Campbell v M.G.N. Ltd may not adequately protect personal privacy,
particularly Baroness Hale of Richmond‘s suggestion that no reasonable
expectation of privacy arises in relation to a celebrity‘s ―popping out to the
shop for a bottle of milk‖. In Von Hannover v Germany Princess Caroline of
Monaco brought proceedings in the German courts against a number of
German magazines for the publication of photographs showing her engaged in
a range of banal activities, such as shopping, skiing, going to the beach, horse-
riding and dining with her partner in a restaurant courtyard. Princess Caroline
was not satisfied with the decisions of the German courts, so she took her case
to the European Court of Human Rights. The European Court of Human
Rights found that the German courts had failed adequately to protect Princess
Caroline‘s right to a private life under the European Convention on Human
Rights Art. 8. Even though Princess Caroline was a celebrity, she was entitled
to a private life; even though the photographs of Princess Caroline were taken
when she was present in, or visible from, a public place, she was entitled to a
‗zone‘ of privacy, even when she was in public. The European Court of
Human Rights concluded that the German courts had given too much weight
to the spatial dimension of privacy and insufficient weight to Princess
Caroline‘s legitimate expectation of privacy, which inhered in her person,
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rather than the place where she happened to be. Given the role of the
European Court of Human Rights‘ jurisprudence in shaping the jurisprudence
in the United Kingdom under the Human Rights Act 1998 (UK), it is to be
expected that the decision in Von Hannover v Germany will further inform the
development of United Kingdom law on this issue.
Indeed, this has already begun to occur. For instance, in Murray v Express
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Newspapers plc the English Court of Appeal found that it was at least
arguable that the child‘s right to privacy had been infringed. In this case David
Murray, the two-year-old son of author J.K. Rowling, was surreptitiously
photographed by a freelance photographer working for a photographic agency,
Big Pictures. At the time, Murray was being pushed down an Edinburgh street

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(2005) 40 EHRR 1.
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Von Hannover v Germany (2005) 40 EHRR 1 at 60-61.
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[2008] 3 WLR 1360. Cf Hosking v Runting [2005] 1 NZLR 1.