Introduction to human rights in UK law

R (on the application of Daly) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2001) - the applicant was a prisoner. He kept correspondence with his solicitor in his cell. Every day his cell was searched. In accordance with rules made under s47(1) Prison Act 1952, he was excluded from his cell while the search was conducted. Officers could examine, but not read, any legally privileged correspondence to check that nothing had been written on it by the prisoner, or stored between its pages, likely to endanger prison security. The applicant sought judicial review of the decision to require examination of prisoners' legally privileged correspondence in their absence. The principle of this case was that a person sentenced to a custodial order retains the right to communicate confidentially with a legal adviser under the seal of legal professional privilege. Such rights can be curtailed only by clear and express words and then only to the extent reasonably necessary to meet the ends which justify the curtailment. It was held that the policy was an unlawful intrusion into personal privacy protected by Article 8(1) ECHR and amounted to a breach of legal professional privilege. The reasons for the policy went beyond what was necessary to achieve the legitimate aims of s47(1). It was also beyond what was necessary to satisfy Article 8(2) ECHR. 

Campbell v MGN Ltd (2004) - the claimant was a model who claimed that her privacy had been violated by the publication of details concerning treatment she had received for drug addiction and rehabilitation. The House of Lords had to consider the claimant's right to privacy set against the right to freedom of expression. The House of Lords laid down the following principles. The exercise of balancing Article 8 and Article 10 may begin when the person publishing the information knows or ought to know that there is a reasonable expectation that the information in question will be kept confidential. Once the information is identified as 'private' in this way, the court must balance the claimant's interest in keeping the information private against the countervailing interest of the recipient in publishing it. When two Convention rights are in play, the proportionality of interfering with one has to be balanced against the proportionality of restricting the other. The court looks at the comparative importance of the actual rights being claimed in the individual case; the justifications for interfering with or restricting each of those rights; and apply the proportionality test to each. It was held by the House of Lords that in the circumstances and the claimant's right to privacy protected by Article 8 was violated because the publications amounted to a breach of confidence. 

R v A (2002) - the House of Lords was asked to interpret s41 Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 in a manner which is consistent with Article 6 ECHR. The section concerns the admissibility of evidence in **** cases relating to consent. The House of Lords laid down the following principle. The evidential material…