Ex-Formula One boss Max Mosley today lost his European Court of Human Rights bid to force newspapers to warn people before exposing their private lives.
The verdict in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg marks the final stage in Mr Mosley's campaign for tighter privacy laws following revelations about his sex life in the News of the World.
In 2008 the UK High Court awarded him £60,000 damages after ruling that there was no justification for a front-page article and pictures about his meeting with five prostitutes in a London flat.
But Mr Mosley pursued the case to the Human Rights Court, challenging UK privacy laws which allow publication without giving targets advanced warning.
His lawyer told a hearing in January that the failure of UK law to oblige newspapers to notify their “victims” before exposing their private lives violated the European Human Rights Convention, to which Britain is a signatory.
The High Court damages award did not restore Mr Mosley’s privacy, said Lord Pannick QC, but “prior notification” would have given him the chance to seek an injunction preventing publication.
Today’s verdict of the seven-judge court declared: “The European Convention on Human Rights does not require media to give prior notice of intended publications to those who feature in them.”
It said that in the UK the right to a private life was protected in several ways: by a system of self-regulation of the press; by access to civil courts to seek damages; and “if individuals were aware of an intended publication touching upon their private life” they could seek an interim injunction preventing publication.
In addition, said the judges, a UK parliamentary inquiry on privacy issues had been held recently with the participation of, among others, Mr Mosley himself.
The resulting report had rejected the need for a “pre-notification” requirement.
The human rights judges said that during the case no evidence had been produced of any other country which had a “pre-notification” requirement, nor of any international legal texts requiring media to do so.
The judgment continued: “Last and not least, the current UK system fully corresponded to the resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on media and privacy.”
PA