Mosley launches last-ditch bid to change privacy laws

EX-FORMULA one boss Max Mosley has launched an appeal against his failed bid to force a change in Britain’s privacy laws.

His lawyers announced yesterday that Mosley would continue his courtroom campaign despite losing a human rights challenge over News of the World revelations about his sex life.

Last month a seven-judge panel of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg threw out his demand for tougher laws forcing newspapers to warn people before exposing their private lives.

That could have a “chilling effect” on journalism, the judges warned.

Now, Mosley has taken up the option of applying for an appeal hearing before a 17-judge “Grand Chamber” of the same court — the last legal option left in his high-profile battle for tougher legislation to prevent repeats of what the court acknowledged had been unjustified media intrusion.

Mosley won a case in the British High Court in 2008 in a ruling declaring that there was no justification for a front-page article and pictures in the News of the World about his meeting with five prostitutes in a London flat.

The paper had suggested that the sexual activities had “Nazi overtones” — something dismissed by the court.

Mosley was awarded £60,000 (€68,000) damages but nevertheless pursued the issue to the Human Rights Court to argue that “prior notification” should be compulsory for newspapers, to give their targets time to seek an injunction preventing publication.

But the Strasbourg verdict last month declared: “The European Convention on Human Rights does not require media to give prior notice of intended publications to those who feature in them.”

Mosley had argued that the media right under British law to expose private behaviour without telling the “victim” breached his right to a private life, guaranteed by the Human Rights Convention.

But the Human Rights judges ruled that the right to freedom of expression — also guaranteed in the convention — would be at risk if “pre-notification” was compulsory.

Yesterday, Mosley’s lawyers, Collyer Bristow, said a formal request had been lodged for the case to be heard by the Grand Chamber.

The application to Strasbourg argues that, without an obligation on the media to notify individuals ahead of publication, there is no remedy for what last month’s ruling described as “a flagrant and unjustified invasion of (Mr Mosley’s) private life”.

A statement from Collyer Bristow said: “Despite the court’s ‘severe criticisms’ of the News of the World, this and other tabloid newspapers could use the same techniques tomorrow to obtain and publish intimate photographs and details of the sex lives of individuals, without notice and in the knowledge that it is wholly unlawful.

“Privacy has been the subject of considerable public and media debate in the last month and a ruling from the Grand Chamber of the Court is needed upon this important issue to close a clear gap in UK law.”