Page 153 - Deception at work all chapters EBook

154 Deception at Work

Most judgements have been concerned with the right to respect private life, although some
have involved incidental claims relating to the home, family or correspondence. For example,
in a 1997 decision (Niemeitz v Germany) the court seemed, under the particular facts of the
case, to extend ‘home’ to include office premises. No general conclusions can be drawn from
this, and if the Eurocrats intended that people were entitled to Article 8 rights in their business
lives and offices, they would have said so.

They could never argue that they kept the Convention brief to preserve ink and paper.
Article 8(2) exposes three important principles:

1 There must be a specific legal rule which authorizes action by a public authority which
makes intrusion into the private lives of citizens ‘lawful’. If there is no such rule, the
action is ‘unlawful’. So, in Euro-speak, everything is ‘unlawful’ unless specifically ap-
proved.

2 The individual must have adequate access to the law in question.
3 The law must be formulated with sufficient precision to enable the individual to foresee

the circumstances in which the law might be applied.

The way these principles apply can be seen clearly from the case of Allison Halford.

THE HALFORD CASE that the interception was ‘unlawful’. This
is a misleading term and what it meant is
Alison Halford, was a senior police officer that there was no applicable law under
in the Merseyside Constabulary. During an which a public authority could intercept
employment dispute, her managers tapped communications on its own internal
her office telephone and, after exhausting networks. Since there was no law under
her remedies under English law, she took which such interception could be regulated,
her case to the European Court of Human the result had to be ‘unlawful’.
Rights arguing a breach of her right to
privacy in her private life under Article
8(2). The court found in her favour stating

The allegations and decisions, in relation to Article 8 and Ms Halford’s office telephones,
can be summarized as in Table 5.3.

It is obvious from Table 5.3 that the court’s decision was based on the very unusual facts
of an exceptional case:

• the employer was a ‘public authority’ or an agency of the State: this was a key factor;
• the matter being investigated was not a crime;
• the interception was not proportionate to the matters in issue;
• the intercepted telephone was specifically designated for her private calls;
• she had been assured that she could use the telephone to seek advice in relation to her case

of sexual discrimination.

The court went to some lengths not to draw general rules on the application of section 8(2) and
to what extent people were entitled to a private life at work. Rather than being an overwhelm-
ing victory for Ms Halford, the judgment was something of a damp squib.