4 Monday December 6 2021 | the times
News
An overhaul of human rights laws will
aim to “correct” the balance between
free speech and privacy after the Duch-
ess of Sussex’s legal victory over The
Mail on Sunday, Dominic Raab has said.
The justice secretary told Times
Radio that there had been a “drift
towards continental-style privacy laws”
in the UK because of EU policy such as
the right to be forgotten and European
Court of Justice case law.
Although he did not comment dir-
ectly on Meghan’s case, Raab said his
overhaul of the Human Rights Act
would consider how to ensure that
judges put a “heavier emphasis” on
freedom of speech. Britain has histor-
ically tended to be more favourable to
the right of free speech over the right of
Privacy overhaul to ‘correct the
balance’ after Meghan’s court win
privacy compared with Germany,
France and other European countries.
The reforms would ensure that Brit-
ish judges adopted a “homegrown
approach” to privacy cases, Raab said,
rather than the “over-reliance on a con-
tinental model, which is effectively
what the Human Rights Act has left us
with”.
The decision by the Court of Appeal
to uphold a ruling by the High Court in
favour of the duchess has caused a
nationwide debate about the balance of
privacy versus free speech. The court
said that the duchess “had a reasonable
expectation of privacy” after the news-
paper published large contents of a let-
ter she wrote to Thomas Markle, her
estranged father. After the decision last
week Downing Street said it would
study the judgments carefully because“a free press is one of the cornerstones
of any democracy”.
Raab said that the necessary re-
adjustment could be made in the gov-
ernment’s upcoming Online Safety Bill,
which will include new protections for
freedom of expression, or the reforms
being planned to the Human Rights
Act. He is due to publish a consultation
next week on overhauling the act,
which enshrined the European
Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
into UK law.
He said that the interpretation of the
legislation over the past two decades
had led to “judge-made privacy laws” in
the UK. “We don’t have Continental-
style privacy law protections,” Raab
said. “If we were going to go down that
route it should have been decided by
elected politicians. I think that’s a goodexample of the kind of balance that we
can strike with our own homegrown
approach to this rather than the over-
reliance on a continental model, which
is effectively what the Human Rights
Act has left us with.”
He added: “It’s about getting the bal-
ance right but certainly I think the drift
towards continental-style privacy laws,
innovated in the courtroom, not by
elected lawmakers in the House of
Commons is something that we can
and should correct.”
A government source added: “The
Strasbourg court reflects a more Ger-
manic balance between freedom of
speech and privacy. Since the Human
Rights Act there have been a number of
cases that have ended with a more Ger-
manic interpretation that verges on the
privacy side over freedom of speech.”Matt Dathan Home Affairs Editor
High and mitre Isabel Moss, 12, became bishop of Salisbury Cathedral — but only for 45 minutes — as part of a yearly celebration of St Nicholas, patron saint of children
Hunters face ban on bringing home souvenirs
Trophy hunting imports from endan-
gered species will be banned, the
government will confirm this week.
However there will be no timetable for
introducing the ban, which was prom-
ised in the last Conservative manifesto.
The Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunt-
ing said that since Boris Johnson made
the pledge in 2019 about 300 souvenirs
from endangered species, including
African elephant, giraffe, hippopota-
mus, leopard and mountain zebra, have
been imported to the UK.
A Whitehall source said that a
commitment to legislate for the ban
would be announced on Thursday
but that there would be no timetable
to implement the policy. The
source added that the ban would be
introduced “as soon as parliamentary
time allows”.
Eduardo Goncalves, founder of the
Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting,
said: “We’ve had a number of promises
from the government. They said they
would ban lion trophies after the killing
of Cecil [the lion].
“They said they would ban trophies
of endangered species in the last
election manifesto. What they haven’tsaid is when they are going to do it. It’s
now almost two years since the public
consultation on their proposals, and six
years since Cecil was shot. We’re told
the bill is finalised but the only problem
standing in its way is the government’s
over-crowded calendar.”
Goncalves said there was a simple
solution available to the government in
the form of a private member’s bill
tabled by John Spellar, the Labour MP
for Warley. The bill would ban imports
of hunting trophies of all species. It is
scheduled to be debated in the
Commons on Friday.
Spellar’s bill would not interferewith the government’s allotted time, he
said. “The government can amend
Friday’s bill to include its own language
and get the ban done. The bill will have
the support of cross-party MPs and
animal and conservation groups.
“The latest data from the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered
Species shows British hunters are
shooting some of the world’s most
threatened species.
“The longer the delay, the more
animals are killed to decorate
British hunters’ living rooms. Nine out
of ten voters want this to stop as soon as
possible. It’s a political no-brainer.”Ben Webster Environment Editor
Air ambulance attack
An air ambulance helicopter was
forced to make an emergency
landing after someone on the
ground with a laser torch tried to
blind the pilot. A spokesman for
the Wiltshire service said that it
was the fourth such attack in a
year. “Events like this can be
extremely hazardous as it causes
distraction or temporary flash
blindness to a pilot,” he added.Free trees in Wales
Every household in Wales will be
offered a free tree in a £2 million
scheme to tackle climate change.
The Welsh government’s deputy
minister for climate change, Lee
Waters, said people could plant
the trees themselves or have
them planted by Coed Cadw, the
Woodland Trust. He added that
he hoped it would inspire people
to plant more trees of their own.Tesco warehouse strike
Warehouse workers and drivers
employed by Tesco are due to
walk out before Christmas in a
pay dispute. Unite said more than
1,000 of its members would take
part in strikes between December
16 and 20 because Tesco’s offer of
4 per cent was “well below” the
current inflation rate of 6 per
cent. The company said the offer
was one of its highest in 25 years.Showing a lot of bottle
One in ten Britons admit that
they have poured cheap wine into
an expensive bottle to impress
guests. A third of millennials are
guilty of using this trick, while a
quarter of them secretly mix
different wines. The research by
Aldi, the budget supermarket,
also found that 10 per cent of
hosts have fallen out with guests
after arguing about wine.50 homes evacuated
A man was arrested and more
than 50 houses were evacuated
after police raided a home in
Derby yesterday morning and
found suspicious items. Bomb
disposal experts were working at
the scene all day. Police said that
the residents of three streets in
the Normanton area were being
moved into temporary
accommodation and would not
be allowed back to their homes
until it was deemed safe. They
said that there was no indication
of a terrorism link.AAAAE E E E
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SSTTTUXYSolve all five clues using each
letter underneath once only1 Assistance (4)2 Leonardo’s The Last Supper, eg (5)3 Conjugal (7)4 Of the faculties of perception (7)5 Additional passage of play (5,4)Quintagram® No 1178
Solutions MindGames in Times
Cryptic clues every day onlineZACHARY CULPIN/BNPS