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Bulletins Story:
ANNA FORD DENIED JUDICIAL REVIEW OF PCC PRIVACY
DECISION
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Date:
01.08.2001
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Anna Ford’s application for leave to review a decision of the
Press Complaints Commission has been refused. She had made a
complaint to the PCC about photographs taken of herself and a
friend without their knowledge on a beach in Majorca. She was
in a bikini, and the photographs showed her applying sun-tan lotion
to her then partner.
The photographs were published in the Daily Mail and OK
Magazine. Ms Ford complained to the PCC that they infringed
her privacy in breach of clause 3 of the PCC code, which
provides:
“1. Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and
family life, home, health and correspondence. A publication
will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual’s
private life without consent.
2. The use of long lens photography to take pictures of
people in private places without their consent is unacceptable.
Note - Private places are public or private property where there
is reasonable expectation of privacy.”
The PCC decided that Ms Ford’s entitlement to privacy under the
PCC code had not been infringed because she had been photographed
on a public beach. Ms Ford challenged that ruling.
However, in order to challenge the PCC by way of judicial review,
you must first apply for leave to do so.
Ms Ford therefore applied to the court for leave to invite a
judge to review the PCC ruling. Had she been successful in
obtaining leave, she would then in a separate hearing have invited
the court to declare the ruling “unreasonable” in legal
terms. The court rejected her application for leave and
concluded that: “The Commission was a body whose membership and
expertise made it much better equipped than the courts to resolve
the difficult exercise of balancing the conflicting rights of the
claimants to privacy and the newspapers to publish. The
courts should only interfere with the Commission’s decisions when
it would be clearly desirable to do so.”
The court also decided that none of the criticisms made on Ms
Ford’s behalf of the PCC’s determination had any merit, or reached
the threshold necessary for the court to grant her permission to
apply for judicial review of the PCC’s decision. This
illustrates the very high threshold faced by any complainant to the
PCC in seeking to challenge the PCC’s decision in court.
Since the law of privacy is rapidly developing and the PCC does
not enjoy the confidence of many of those who have reason to
complain about their treatment by the press, legal proceedings are
now more likely to be effective in many cases.
Jonathan Coad
August 2001
84
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