Whatever the final verdict on what caused the crash that killed Princess Diana and Dodi al-Fayed, it can be expected that several backbench MPs will try to get privacy legislation onto the statute books in Britain - if only to show the world their concern for Princess Diana and disgust at media intrusion.
This will not be the first time MPs will have sought to introduce privacy laws. As far back as 1953, the newspaper industry established the Press Council as its response to the threat of legal regulation. The Press Council was criticised by the Royal Commission on the press in 1977 and MPs were again seeking legislation. In 1991, the present Press Complaints Commission was established with its code of conduct and promise of quick adjudications. Its success can be measured in that when the Sun was condemned for publishing photographs of Princess Diana sunbathing in a bikini while pregnant, the newspaper published the photographs again, under the heading "This is what the row's all about folks", and then sold the photographs.
A British media expert, Mr Geoffrey Robinson QC, said in his book, Freedom, The Individ- ual And The Law, that the "most glaring deficiency in English law" is the failure to protect the privacy of its citizens. That reflected the nature of a society both prurient and prudish "where the newspapers which are the most despised for invading private lives are at the same time the most popular".
"What the British press has so signally failed to understand is that its freedom to serve the public interest would be better secured if privacy was protected by law rather than by systems which depend either on self-restraint (which is unworkable) or an extra legal and unappealable power wielded by government quangos," he said.
Britain is unique in that it has no protection of privacy at all. Other countries in the developed world recognise privacy as a human right, either in their constitutions or through protocols. Some European countries have brought the European Convention on Human Rights into their domestic law. That seeks to balance the right to free expression with that of privacy. Under Article 8: "Everybody has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence." Article 10 says: "Everybody has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers."
The British government is committed to bringing the convention into British law and this will give some form of legal redress to those who feel their privacy has been invaded.
Britain's legal position will then be similar to Ireland, where there is a recognised constitutional right to privacy. That right was developed in a number of cases, none against newspapers. One case, that of Kennedy and Arnold, was taken against the State by two journalists. Recently, however, there have been changes in how stories are reported and the type of stories covered, perhaps in reaction to the high sales of British tabloids in Ireland - the Sun and the Mirror sell a combined 109,760 - or as the downside of an independent media, or simply a change in Irish culture. If it continues, however, especially following the death of Princess Diana, it is only a matter of time before a privacy case in an Irish court sets a precedent.