The attack on Mr Justice Eady by Paul Dacre in his speech to the Society of Editors on 9 November was both misguided and inappropriate, not least because Dacre has picked on someone who, due to judicial convention, is not able to respond, however much he might wish to.
The privacy laws Dacre complained about were not made by judges, as he suggested. Rather, the courts are simply putting into effect the European Convention on Human Rights, as defined by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in such cases as von Hannover v Germany [2004], in which Princess Caroline of Monaco’s right to a degree of privacy in public spaces was upheld.
