This chapter examines the laws which have had a particular bearing on the practice of journalism in newspapers in England and Wales in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These relate to defamation, privacy, breach of confidence, official secrecy and terrorism. In particular it focusses on the recent impact of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998 on how courts have interpreted and applied the various laws affecting press freedom in these particular areas. It argues that whilst much of the press has chafed against laws which prevent it from invading people’s private lives and unjustly defaming them, it has been remarkably insouciant about those which make it difficult to reveal abuses of state and corporate power.
The Impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 on Policing in England and Wales