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Privacy Injunctions

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for his response and for his general welcome both to the Statement of my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General and to the establishment of a Joint Committee which will obviously look at these matters in much greater detail. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport indicated last week that a privacy law would not be ruled out. However, having set up a Joint Committee, that is very much the sort of issue that we would expect it to consider. The noble and learned Lord is right to say that the European Convention on Human Rights will influence and be material to the shaping of any future law should there be such a change. It is important to recognise that that was not overlooked when the 1998 Act was going through Parliament. As he will remember, having been a law officer at the time, there was quite a focus on the interplay between Articles 8 and 10. Indeed, Section 12 of the Human Rights Act was introduced to encourage and enjoin the judiciary, when considering such matters, to have proper regard to the importance of freedom of expression. Each set of circumstances and each case will be different, but clearly one can only expect and believe that the judges have been carrying out their duties in accordance with their judicial oath. As I indicated in the final paragraph of the Statement, the interpretation of the law is a responsibility placed on the judiciary and we would expect parliamentarians to uphold these principles. Sub judice conventions exist in both Houses of Parliament and I am sure that anyone who seeks to raise such issues will take care in doing so. Perhaps it would be best to refer to the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, which the Master of the Rolls also quotes in his report. This Joint Committee, reporting in 1999, said that the sub judice rules were needed, "““to strike a balance between two sets of principles. On the one hand, the rights of parties in legal proceedings should not be prejudiced by discussion of their case in Parliament, and Parliament should not prevent the courts from exercising their functions. On the other hand, Parliament has a constitutional right to discuss any matter it pleases””." In his press conference last Friday, the Lord Chief Justice indicated that he entirely agreed with that, and I do as well. We would perhaps all do well to reflect on those words from a previous Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege.