I recently argued here that, if the High Court in Sinnott v Carlow Nationalist refers the matter to the Supreme Court, that court should take the opportunity to clarify the tort of invasion of privacy in Irish law. It’s a mess that needs sorting. After listening to Prof Gavin Phillipson‘s paper on UK privacy law in the Dublin Legal Workshop last week, it seems to me that UK privacy law is also a mess that needs sorting, and the House of Lords (in its judicial capacity, it is the UK’s highest court) should take a similar opportunity to sort things out there.

I have been musing since Gavin’s presentation on two points which seemed to me to arise from it (that’s Gavin in the photo on the left, btw). …

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The interest in Richard Sinnott’s privates and privacy shows no signs of abating, either online (egs from both ends of the spectrum: Edward McGarr | Twenty Major) or offline (eg, I was on the Breakfast Show on Newstalk106 (podcast feed here) on Wednesday morning discussing this very case). The story so far: the Circuit Court (discussed here) and High Court (discussed here) have already held that the publication by the Carlow Nationalist of a photograph of Mr Sinnott involved in a football match in which his private parts were exposed constituted an invasion of his privacy. However, the High Court proceedings are still ongoing before Mr Justice Budd, and, on Monday, the Nationalist asked Budd J to refer the matter to the Supreme Court. According to newspaper reports on Tuesday (Irish Independent | Irish Times), he adjourned to February 12th next the issue of whether he will refer such issues to the Supreme Court for determination. He should. Although the amount of damages under appeal is relatively small (at only €6,500), the issues of principle involved are of the highest importance.…

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