Balancing the Right to Privacy and Freedom of Expression: Re-evaluating Hosking v Runting in the Light of Recent Developments in English Privacy Law
This paper examines the potential impact of recent English privacy jurisprudence on the New Zealand tort of privacy. The paper contrasts the New Zealand Court of Appeal’s aversion towards an over-expansive privacy right expressed in Hosking v Runting with an increasing readiness to override freedom of expression in favour of privacy interests in the United Kingdom. Three central conflicts in the courts’ reasoning are addressed in detail, namely privacy’s relationship with public places, individuals with public profiles and mediums of publication. While developments in English privacy law highlight reasoning flaws and theoretical shortcomings in Hosking, the increasing influence European jurisprudence on English law may nevertheless justify some divergence in the two jurisdictions’ balancing of privacy and freedom of expression.
Balancing Privacy and Free Speech: A Critique of English Privacy Law under the Human Rights Act
This thesis explores the legal protection of private information in English law. In light of the developing ECtHR case law in this area, the thesis considers whether the protection currently achieved in domestic law does now reach the level of protection offered at Strasbourg. But, bearing in mind the influence of the margin of appreciation doctrine, the thesis will go on to ask whether the domestic level of protection aligns to an acceptable extent with the level of protection that the justifications underpinning the concept of informational privacy would demand. Finally, if disparity between the Strasbourg and domestic levels of privacy protection is found, the thesis will question why the instruments of the HRA (particularly sections 2 and 6) have not been utilised by English courts to afford greater protection to informational autonomy, based on current understandings of their operation. It is argued that while the re-balancing of privacy and free speech at Strasbourg may have resulted in an acceptable degree of alignment between the levels of privacy protection achieved by the Strasbourg and domestic courts, a significant gulf remains between the way in which the balance between privacy and free speech is struck by English courts and the balance demanded by the justifications underpinning the concept of informational autonomy.
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.